ger than our
moderate sized country towns, and far from being an unbroken mass of
houses, had yet made the two young foresters delighted to enjoy a day of
thorough country in one another's society. Little Dennet longed to go
with them, but the prentice world was far too rude for little maidens to
be trusted in it, and her father held out hopes of going one of these
days to High Park as he called it, while Edmund and Stephen promised her
all their nuts, and as many blackberries as could be held in their flat
caps.

"Giles has promised me none," said Dennet, with a pouting lip, "nor
Ambrose."

"Why sure, little mistress, thou'lt have enough to crack thy teeth on!"
said Edmund Burgess.

"They _ought_ to bring theirs to me," returned the little heiress of the
Dragon court with an air of offended dignity that might have suited the
heiress of the kingdom.

Giles, who looked on Dennet as a kind of needful appendage to the
Dragon, a piece of property of his own, about whom he need take no
trouble, merely laughed and said, "Want must be thy master then." But
Ambrose treated her petulance in another fashion. "Look here, pretty
mistress," said he, "there dwells by me a poor little maid nigh about
thine age, who never goeth further out than to Saint Paul's minster, nor
plucketh flower, nor hath sweet cake, nor manchet bread, nor sugar-
stick, nay, and scarce ever saw English hazel-nut nor blackberry. 'Tis
for her that I want to gather them."

"Is she thy master's daughter?" demanded Dennet, who could admit the
claims of another princess.

"Nay, my master hath no children, but she dwelleth near him."

"I will send her some, and likewise of mine own comfits and cakes," said
Mistress Dennet. "Only thou must bring all to me first."

Ambrose laughed and said, "It's a bargain then, little mistress?"

"I keep my word," returned Dennet marching away, while Ambrose obeyed a
summons from good-natured Mistress Headley to have his wallet filled
with bread and cheese like those of her own prentices.

Off went the lads under the guidance of Edmund Burgess, meeting parties
of their own kind at every turn, soon leaving behind them the City
bounds, as they passed under New Gate, and by and by skirting the fields
of the great Carthusian monastery, or Charter House, with the burial-
ground given by Sir Walter Manny at the time of the Black Death. Beyond
came marshy ground through which they had to pick their way carefully,
over ste