that discontent is the worst companion a
girl can have for making everything look miserable. You'll be a deal
happier, she says, with a dry crust and a good will to it, than with a
roast ox and a complaining temper."

"Ay, that's true!" said Emma, with a sigh.

"Poor Emma!" laughed Antigone. "You get enough of it, don't you, at the
smithy?"

"I would rather not talk over my mother and sisters, if you please,"
returned Emma.

"Oh, you don't need to take airs, my lady. I know!"

"Come, let Emma be," said Sarah. "Let's keep our tempers, if we haven't
much else. There's the vesper bell!"

Antigone's work was not likely to be improved by the hasty huddled-up
style in which it was folded, while Sarah and Emma shook theirs straight
and carefully avoided creases. They had then to give it in to the
mistress, who stood at one end of the room, putting all away in a large
coffer. When the last girl had given in her work, Mrs De la Laund
called for silence.

"On Thursday next," said she, "I shall give you a holiday after dinner.
The Queen comes to Lincoln on that day, and I wish to give as many as
are good girls the chance of seeing her enter. But I shall expect to
have no creased work like Antigone's; nor split and frayed like
Geneveva's; nor dirtied like Femiana's. Now you may go."

They had odd names for girls in those days. Among the nobles and
gentry, most were like ours; young ladies of rank were Alice, Cicely,
Margaret, Joan, Isabel, Emma, or Agnes: a strange name being the
exception. But among working women the odd names were then the rule:
they were Yngeleis, Sabelina, Orenge, Pimma, Cinelote, Argentella, and
very many more of the same high-sounding kind.

When the apprentices left the work-room, they were free to do as they
liked till seven o'clock, when they must all re-assemble there, answer
to their names called over, repeat some prayers after Mrs de la Laund,
and go to bed in a large loft at the top of the house. Characters came
out on these occasions. The majority showed themselves thoughtless and
giddy: they went to run races on the green, and to play games--the
better disposed only among themselves: but the wild, adventurous spirits
soon joined a lot of idle youths as unsteady as themselves, with whom
they spent the evening in rough play, loud laughter, and not altogether
decorous joking. The little group of sensible girls kept away from such
scenes. Most of them went to see their friends,