g to him, as a tale is told in
the ingle nook on an even of Yule-tide.

CHAPTER 3

The Lady Telleth Ralph of the Past Days of Her Life

"Now shalt thou hear of me somewhat more than the arras and the book
could tell thee; and yet not all, for time would fail us therefor--and
moreover my heart would fail me. I cannot tell where I was born nor of
what lineage, nor of who were my father and mother; for this I have
known not of myself, nor has any told me. But when I first remember
anything, I was playing about a garden, wherein was a little house
built of timber and thatched with reed, and the great trees of the
forest were all about the garden save for a little croft which was
grown over with high grass and another somewhat bigger, wherein were
goats. There was a woman at the door of the house and she spinning,
yet clad in glittering raiment, and with jewels on her neck and
fingers; this was the first thing that I remember, but all as it were a
matter of every day, and use and wont, as it goes with the memories of
children. Of such matters I will not tell thee at large, for thou
knowest how it will be. Now the woman, who as I came to know was
neither old nor young in those days, but of middle age, I called
mother; but now I know that she was not my mother. She was hard and
stern with me, but never beat me in those days, save to make me do what
I would not have done unbeaten; and as to meat I ate and drank what I
could get, as she did, and indeed was well-fed with simple meats as
thou mayest suppose from the aspect of me to-day. But as she was not
fierce but rather sour to me in her daily wont in my youngest days so
also she was never tender, or ever kissed me or caressed me, for as
little as I was. And I loved her naught, nor did it ever come into my
mind that I should love her, though I loved a white goat of ours and
deemed it dear and lovely; and afterwards other things also that came
to me from time to time, as a squirrel that I saved from a weasel, and
a jackdaw that fell from a tall ash-tree nigh our house before he had
learned how to fly, and a house-mouse that would run up and down my
hand and arm, and other such-like things; and shortly I may say that
the wild things, even to the conies and fawns loved me, and had but
little fear of me, and made me happy, and I loved them.

"Further, as I grew up, the woman set me to do such work as I had
strength for as needs was; for there was no man dwelt anigh