up, and verily had for the nonce forgat that which went afore,
when all at once a voice saith in mine ear--

"Well, Dame Cicely! Went you forth in such haste lest you should be
clapped into prison for stealing? Good lack, but mine heart's in my
mouth yet! Were you wood [mad], or what ailed you?"

"Dame Elizabeth," said I, as all came back on me, "I have been to visit
Hilda's mother."

"Dear heart! And what found you? Was she a-supping on goose and leeks?
That make o' folks do alway feign to be as poor as Job, when their
coffers be so full the lid cannot be shut. You be young, Dame Cicely,
and know not the world."

"Maybe," said I. "But if you will hearken me, I will tell you what I
found."

"Go to, then," saith she, as she followed me into our chamber.
"Whate'er you found, you left me too poor to pay the jeweller. I would
fain have had a sapphire pin more than I got, but your raid on my purse
disabled me thereof. The rogue would give me no credit."

"Hear but my tale," said I, "and if when it be told you regret your
sapphire pin, I beseech you say so."

So I told her in plain words, neither 'minishing nor adding, how I had
found them, and the story I had heard from the poor woman. She
listened, cool enough at first, but ere I made an end the water stood in
her eyes.

"_Ha, chetife_!" said she, when I stayed me. "I'll pay the maid another
time. Trust me, Dame Cicely, I believed not a word. If you had been
cheated as oft--! Verily, I am sorry I sent not man to see how matters
stood with them. Well, I am fain you gave her the money, after all.
But, trust me, you took my breath away!"

"And my own belike," said I.

I think Hilda and hers stood not in much want the rest of that winter.
But whenever she came with work for me, either Margaret my maid, or
Jack's old groom, a sober man and an ancient, walked back with her.

Meantime Sir Roger de Mortimer played first viol in the Court
minstrelsy. Up and yet higher up he crept, till he could creep no
further, as I writ a few leaves back. On the eve of Saint Pancras was
crowned the new Queen of France in the Abbey of Saint Denis, which is to
France as Westminster Abbey to us: and there ramped my Lord of Mortimer
in the very suite of the Queen herself, and in my Lord of Chester's own
livery. Twice-banished traitor, he appeared in the self presence of the
King that had banished him, and of the wife of his own natural Prince,
to whom he had done treaso