, which she shared with Joan and Kate.

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Note 1. Understood. The word _understand_ was then restricted to an
original idea; _conceive_ was used in the sense of understanding another
person.

Note 2. The term "middle earth" arose from the belief then held, that
the earth was in the midst of the universe, equidistant from Heaven
above it and from Hell beneath.

CHAPTER TEN.

NIGHT ALARMS.

"Oh let me feel Thee near me,--
The world is very near:
I see the sights that dazzle,
The tempting sounds I hear;
My foes are ever near me,
Around me and within;
But, Jesus, draw Thou nearer,
And save my soul from sin."

John E. Bode.

"Phyllis, thou wilt lie in my Lady's pallet, tonight," said Perrote, as
she let her into their own chamber. Amphillis looked rather alarmed.
She had never yet been appointed to that responsible office. But it was
not her nature to protest against superior orders; and she quietly
gathered up such toilet articles as she required, and prepared to obey.

"You know your duty?" said Perrote, interrogatively. "You first help
your Lady abed, and then hie abed yourself, in the dark, as silently and
hastefully as may be. There is no more to do, without she call in the
night, till her _lever_, for which you must be ready, and have a care
not to arouse her till she wake and summon you, without the hour grow
exceeding late, when you may lawfully make some little bruit to wake her
after a gentle fashion. Come now."

Amphillis followed Perrote into the Countess's room.

They found her standing by the window, as she often was at night, for
the sunset and the evening lights had a great attraction for her. She
turned her head as they entered.

"At last, Perrote!" she said. "In good sooth, but I began to think thou
hadst forgot me, like everybody else in earth and heaven."

"My Lady knows I shall never do that," was the quiet reply. "Dame, my
Lady Foljambe entreats of your Ladyship leave that Amphillis here shall
lie in your pallet until she return."

"Doth she so?" answered the Countess, with a curt laugh. "My Lady
Foljambe is vastly pleasant, trow. Asking her caged bird's leave to set
another bird in the cage! Well, little brown nightingale, what sayest?
Art feared lest the old eagle bite, or canst trust the hooked beak for a
week or twain?"

"Dame, an' it please you, I am in no wise feared o