lks old Margery, still dignified as a
queen's housekeeper, bearing a bowl of warm frothy milk.

And this being gratefully drunk by me, she gravely inquires, in her
queer provincial accent, how I am this morn; and then goes to report
to some anxious inquirer (whom?--I can easily guess) that with the
exception of my cut foot I am very well.

Presently she returns and lights a blazing fire. Then in come my dress
and linen and my one shoe, all cleaned, dried and mended, only my poor
habit is so torn and so stiff that I have to put up with Margery's
best striped skirt in lieu of it, till she has time to mend and wash
it. As it is she must have been at work all night upon these repairs
for me.

Again she goes out--for another consultation, I suppose--and comes
back to find me half clad, hopping about the room; this time she has
got nice white linen bandages and with them ties up my little foot,
partly for the cuts, partly for want of a sandal, till it is twice the
size of its companion. But I can walk on it.

Then my strange handmaid--who by the way is a droll, grumbling old
soul, and orders me about as if she were still my nurse--dresses me
and combs my hair, which will not yet awhile be rid of all its sand.
And so, in due course, Molly emerges from her bower, as well tended
almost as she might have been at Bath, except that Margery's striped
skirt is a deal too short for her and she displays a little more of
one very nice ankle and one gouty foot than fashion warrants.

And in this manner the guest goes to meet her host in the great room.

He was walking up and down as if impatiently expecting me, and when I
hobbled in, he came forward with a smile on his face which, once more,
I thought beautiful.

"God be praised!" he said, taking both my hands and kissing one of
them, with his fine air of gallantry which was all the more delightful
on account of his evident earnestness, "you seem none the worse for
this terrible adventure. I dreaded this morning to hear that you were
in a fever. You know," he added so seriously that I had to smile, "you
might easily have had a fever from this yesterday's work; and what
should we have done without doctor and medicines!"

"You have a good surgeon, at least," said I laughing and pointing at
my swaddled extremity. He laughed too at the _enmitouflage_. "I tried
to explain how it was to be done," he said, "but I think I could have
managed it more neatly myself."

Then he helped me t