for it is a warm day, and she has not tied her hood.
She must be somebody of consequence, for a smart gentleman leads her by
the hand, and one with a long staff walks in front, to keep the people
from pressing too close on her. She is indeed somebody of consequence--
the Countess of Lincoln herself, by birth an Italian Princess; and she
is so grand, and so rich, and so beautiful and stately--and I am sorry
to add, so proud--that people call her the Queen of Lincoln. She has
not far to go home--only through the archway, and past Saint Michael's
Church and the Bull Gate, and then the great portcullis of the grim old
Castle lifts its head to receive its lady, and she disappears from our
sight.

Do you notice that carpets are spread along the streets for her?--not
carpets like ours, but the only sort they have, which are a kind of
rough matting. And indeed she needs them, if those purple velvet shoes
of hers are not to be quite ruined by the time she reaches home. For
there are no pavements, and the streets are almost ankle-deep in mud,
and worse than mud. Dead cats, rotten vegetables, animal refuse, and
every kind of abominable thing that you could see or think of, all lie
about in heaps, in these narrow, narrow streets, where the sun can
hardly get down to the ground, and two people might sometimes shake
hands from opposite windows in the upper stories, for they come farther
out than the lower ones. Everybody throws all his rubbish into the
street; all his slops, all his ashes, all his everything of which he
wants to get rid. The smells are something dreadful, as soon as you
come out of the perfumed churches. It is pleasanter to have the
churches perfumed, undoubtedly; but it would be a good deal healthier if
they kept the streets clean.

Quietly following the grand young Countess, at a respectful distance,
come two women who are evidently mother and daughter. Their dress shows
that they are not absolutely poor, but it tells at least as plainly that
they are not at all rich. Just as they reach the west door, a little
girl of ten comes quickly after them, dressed just like themselves, a
woman in miniature.

"Why, Avice, where hast thou been?" says the elder of the two women.

"I was coming, Grandmother," explains little Avice, "and Father Thomas
called me, and bade me tell you that the holy Bishop would come to see
you this afternoon, and sup his four-hours with you."

Four-hours, taken as its name shows at