a--washerwoman."

"Gramercy! if you are man enough to bring me half-washed linen t' iron,
I am woman enough to fling't back i' the suds."

And so the brave girl and the brave soldier worked with a will, and kept
the wolf from the door. More they could not do. Margaret had repaired
the "To-morrow box," and as she leaned over the glue, her tears mixed
with it, and she cemented her exiled lover's box with them, at which a
smile is allowable, but an intelligent smile tipped with pity, please,
and not the empty guffaw of the nineteenth-century-jackass, burlesquing
Bibles, and making fun of all things except fun. But when mended
it stood unreplenished. They kept the weekly rent paid, and the pot
boiling, but no more.

And now came a concatenation. Recommended from one to another, Margaret
washed for the mayor. And bringing home the clean linen one day she
heard in the kitchen that his worship's only daughter was stricken
with disease, and not like to live, Poor Margaret could not help
cross-questioning, and a female servant gave her such of the symptoms as
she had observed. But they were too general. However, one gossip would
add one fact, and another another. And Margaret pondered them all.

At last one day she met the mayor himself. He recognized her directly.
"Why, you are the unlicensed doctor." "I was," said she, "but now I'm
your worship's washerwoman." The dignitary coloured, and said that was
rather a come down. "Nay, I bear no malice; for your worship might have
been harder. Rather would I do you a good turn. Sir, you have a sick
daughter. Let me see her."

The mayor shook his head. "That cannot be. The law I do enforce on
others I may not break myself." Margaret opened her eyes. "Alack, sir, I
seek no guerdon now for curing folk; why, I am a washerwoman. I trow one
may heal all the world, an if one will but let the world starve one in
return." "That is no more than just," said the mayor: he added, "an' ye
make no trade on't, there is no offence." "Then let me see her."

"What avails it? The learnedest leeches in Rotterdam have all seen her,
and bettered her nought. Her ill is inscrutable. One skilled wight saith
spleen; another, liver; another, blood; another, stomach; and another,
that she is possessed; and in very truth, she seems to have a demon;
shunneth all company; pineth alone; eateth no more victuals than might
diet a sparrow. Speaketh seldom, nor hearkens them that speak, and
weareth thinner and paler