"What is the matter, child?" said I.

"Mother Ismania bade me scrub the boards," said she.

"Well! wherefore no?"

Denise fell a-sobbing yet more. For a minute or two might I not come at
the reason: but at the last I did--she was a kinswoman of Sir Michael de
La Pole, and thought it so degrading to be set to scrub boards!

"Why, dear heart," said I, "we all do work of this fashion."

"Oh yes, common Sisters may," quoth she.

"Well," said I, "we cannot be all uncommon. I ensure thee, Denise,
there are here many daughters of better houses than thine. Mother
Ismania herself is daughter of an offshoot of the Percys, and Sister
Isabel is a Neville by her mother. My Lady is a Fitzhugh of
Ravenswath."

"Well, Sisters!" came from behind us in my Lady's most sarcastic voice,
"you choose a nice time for comparing your pedigrees. Maybe it were as
well to leave that interesting amusement for recreation-time, and scrub
the corridor just now."

Sister Denise melted again into tears, and I turned to explain.

"Your pail looks pretty full, Sister," said my Lady grimly: "much more
water will make it overflow."

"May it please you, Madam," said I, "Sister Denise is thus distressed
because she, being a De La Pole, is set to scrubbing and such like
menial work."

"Oh, is she, indeed?" laughed my Lady. "Sister, do you know what Mother
Annora is?"

Sister Denise could only shake her head.

"Her mother was grand-daughter to King Edward of Westminster," said my
Lady. "If we three were in the world, I should be scantly fit to bear
her train and you would be little better than her washerwoman. But I
never heard her grumble to scour the corridor and she has done it more
times than ever you thought about it. Foolish child, to suppose there
was any degradation in honest work! Was not our blessed Lord Himself a
carpenter? I warrant the holy Virgin kept her boards clean, and did not
say she was too good to scrub. No woman alive is too good to do her
duty."

Sister Denise brake forth into fresh sobs.

"A wa--wa--washerwoman! To be called a washerwoman! [Note 3.] Me,
kinswoman of Sir Michael de La Pole, and Sir Richard to boot--a
washerwo--woman!"

"Don't be a goose!" said my Lady. "De La Pole, indeed! who be these De
La Poles? Why, no more than merchants of Lombard Street, selling
towelling at fivepence the ell, and coverchiefs of Cambray [Note 4] at
seven shillings the piece. Truly a goodly pedigree to boast