for
foreign fruits and spices, you shall ask little of the costard-monger
shortly."

"But who is to dig and dress it?" moaned Faith. "Aubrey cannot, all the
day with his Lord, even if he were not away o' nights: and Charity shall
have too much to do."

"I have two hands, Madam," answered Hans, "and will very quickly have a
spade in them: and ere I do aught else will I set the garden a-going,
that Rachel and Charity can keep it in good order, with a little
overlooking from you."

"Me!" cried Faith, with a gasp of horror.

"Right good for you!" said her sister. "I'll not help at that work; I
shall leave it for you. As to foreign fruits and spices, we'll have
none of them, save now and then a lemon for the Lady Lettice--she loves
the flavour, and we'll not have her go short of comforts--but for all
else, I make no 'count of your foreign spice. Rosemary, thyme, mint,
savoury, fennel, and carraway be spice enough for any man, and a deal
better than all your far-fetched maces, and nutmegs, and peppers, that
be fetched over here but to fetch the money out of folks' pockets: and
wormwood and currant wine are every bit as good, and a deal wholesomer,
than all your sherris-sack and Portingale rubbish. Hans, lad, let's
have a currant-bush or two in that garden; I can make currant wine with
any, though I say it, and gooseberry too. I make no count of your
foreign frumps and fiddlements. What's all your Champagne but just
gooseberry with a French name to it? and how can that make it any
sweeter? I'll be bounden half of it is made of gooseberries, if folks
might but know. And as to your Rhenish and claret, and such stuff, I
would not give a penny for the lot--I'd as soon have a quart of alegar.
Nay, nay! we are honest English men and women, and let us live like it."

"But, Temperance, my dear," suggested Lady Louvaine, with a smile, "if
no foreign fruits had ever been brought to England, nor planted here,
our table should be somewhat scanty. In truth, we should have but
little, I believe, save acorns and beech-nuts."

"Nay, come!" responded Temperance; "wouldn't you let us have a bit of
parsley, or a barberry or twain?"

"Parsley!" said Lady Louvaine, smiling again. "Why, Temperance, that
came first into England from Italy the year Anstace was born--the second
of King Edward." [Note 3.]

"Dear heart, did it so?" quoth she. "And must not we have so much as a
cabbage or a sprig of sweet marjoram?"

"Sweet marjo