never known a mother; I am but a poor thrall, a goatherd dwelling with
a mistress in a nook of this wildwood: I have never a piece of bread;
but as to the goats' milk, that thou shalt have at once.' So I called
one of my goats to me, for I knew them all, and milked her into a
wooden bowl that I carried slung about me, and gave the old woman to
drink: and she kissed my hand and drank and spake again, but no longer
in a whining voice, like a beggar bidding alms in the street, but frank
and free.

"'Damsel,' she said, 'now I see that thy soul goes with thy body, and
that thou art kind and proud at once. And whatever thou art, it is no
mock to say of thee, that thou art as fair as the fairest; and I think
that this will follow thee, that henceforth no man who seeth thee once
will forget thee ever, or cease to long for thee: of a surety this is
thy weird. Now I see that thou knowest no more of the world and its
ways than one of the hinds that run in these woods. So if thou wilt, I
will sit down by thee and tell thee much that shall avail thee; and
thou in thy turn shalt tell me all the tale concerning thy dwelling and
thy service, and the like.'

"I said, 'I may not, I durst not; I serve a mighty mistress, and she
would slay me if she knew that I had spoken to thee; and woe's me! I
fear that even now she will not fail to know it. Depart in peace.'

"'Nay,' she said, 'thou needest not tell me, for I have an inkling of
her and her ways: but I will give thee wisdom, and not sell it thee at
a price. Sit down then, fair child, on this flowery grass, and I will
sit beside thee and tell thee of many things worth thine heeding.' So
there we sat awhile, and in good sooth she told me much of the world
which I had not yet seen, of its fairness and its foulness; of life and
death, and desire and disappointment, and despair; so that when she had
done, if I were wiser than erst, I was perchance little more joyous;
and yet I said to myself that come what would I would be a part of all
that.

"But at last she said: 'Lo the day is waning, and thou hast two things
to do; either to go home to thy mistress at once, or flee away from her
by the way that I shall show thee; and if thou wilt be ruled by me, and
canst bear thy thralldom yet a little while thou wilt not flee at once,
but abide till thou hast seen me again. And since it is here that thou
hast met me, here mayst thou meet me again; for the days are long now,
and thou may