-red with the sun behind them,
but were now only their own whispering ghosts.

"This must be far from the city," she said softly, and the little maid
answered:

"I do not know, madam; I was never there. We have come far, Karen and I,
but not from the way you were running. We are going to the Farm to help
in the orchard. The Dame sent for me and father always wishes to oblige
the Dame. So we came at once."

"And can you send someone back with me?"

"I do not know, madam. The Dame will take care of it."

"I will pay whatever is right--I am not poor," she muttered, holding to
one side of the saddle.

"The Dame will know, madam," the little maid repeated, and they went on
their way under a lightening sky, for the dawn was coming up white, and
even now the moon was paling.

She had no way of telling how long that journey was, for more than once
her head nodded forward on her breast and she knew that she fell into a
kind of sleep that was not wholly sleep, for she was aware of the little
donkey's gentle gait, of the winding, leaf-strewn paths, of the winking
stars. Once they went through a bit of rolling pasture-land where the
cattle drowsed, dim, misty bulks on either hand, and the steaming breath
of a curious horse bathed her startled face. He galloped away and his
hurrying feet woke her to the sense that the dawn was upon them. The
light was now a pale rosy glow and straight from its heart a beaming
arrow struck upon a long brown gable that she took for one of the great
ledges of massive rock that time and again had risen beside them. But
the little maid knew better, and skipped beside the hound.

[Illustration: There were no lights but the great moon.]

"See, madam," she cried, "here is the Farm! And there is my little
window in the roof! And there are the doves above the long barn."

She looked and saw that all these things were so, but great weariness
filled her and she could think of nothing but the long way back, for she
knew that they had come a great way from the city.

"This may all be well for you, child, but it is not the same to me," she
said sadly.

"And why not, madam? The Dame is kind to all," the little maid replied,
and urged the donkey on.

"What is your name?" she asked, looking for the first time at her guide
in the full light of early day. The girl was quaintly dressed, she saw,
with a black bodice laced across her young body, a shorter skirt than
grown girls wear now, and a scarlet ribb