"Good aunt, I am
fain to see thee here!" that she answered, "What, thou, Ambrose! What a
fine fellow thou art! Truly I knew not thou wast of such good mien!
Thou thrivest at Chelsea!"

"Who would not thrive there?" said Ambrose. "Nay, aunt, tarry a little,
I have a message for thee that I would fain give before we go in to
Aldonza."

"From his reverence the Dean? Hath he bethought himself of her?"

"Ay, that hath he done," said Ambrose. "He is not the man to halt when
good may be done. What doth he do, since it seems thou hadst speech of
him, but send for Sir Thomas More, then sitting at Westminster, to come
and see him as soon as the Court brake up, and I attended my master.
They held council together, and by and by they sent for me to ask me of
what conditions and breeding the maid was, and what I knew of her
father?"

"Will they wed her to thee? That were rarely good, so they gave thee
some good office!" cried his aunt.

"Nay, nay," said Ambrose. "I have much to learn and understand ere I
think of a wife--if ever. Nay! But when they had heard all I could
tell them, they looked at one another, and the Dean said, `The maid is
no doubt of high blood in her own land--scarce a mate for a London
butcher or currier.'"

"`It were matching an Arab mare with a costard monger's colt,' said my
master, `or Angelica with Ralph Roister-Doister.'"

"I'd like to know what were better for the poor outlandish maid than to
give her to some honest man," put in Perronel.

"The end of it was," said Ambrose, "that Sir Thomas said he was to be at
the palace the next day, and he would strive to move the Queen to take
her countrywoman into her service. Yea, and so he did, but though Queen
Katharine was moved by hearing of a fatherless maid of Spain, and at
first spake of taking her to wait on herself, yet when she heard the
maid's name, and that she was of Moorish blood, she would none of her.
She said that heresy lurked in them all, and though Sir Thomas offered
that the Dean or the Queen's own chaplain should question her on the
faith, it was all lost labour. I heard him tell the Dean as much, and
thus it is that they bade me come for thee, and for the maid, take boat,
and bring you down to Chelsea, where Sir Thomas will let her be bred up
to wait on his little daughters till he can see what best may be done
for her. I trow his spirit was moved by the Queen's hardness! I heard
the Dean mutter, `_Et venient ab Oriente