eicht solemnly.

"Ay, lass; and to read his holy books wi'. A neighbour o' mine saw his
hand come out, and the birds sat thereon and pecked crumbs. She went
for to kiss it, but the holy man whippit it away in a trice. They can't
abide a woman to touch 'en, or even look at 'em, saints can't."

"What like was his hand, wife? Did you ask her?"

"What is my tongue for, else? Why, dear heart, all one as yourn; by the
same token a had a thumb and four fingers."

"Look ye there now."

"But a deal whiter nor yourn and mine."

"Ay, ay."

"And main skinny."

"Alas."

"What could ye expect? Why, a live upon air, and prayer, and candles."

"Ah, well," continued Joan; "poor thing, I whiles think 'tis best for
her to know the worst. And now she hath gotten a voice from heaven, Or
almost as good, and behoves her pray for his soul. One thing, she is not
so poor now as she was; and never fell riches to a better hand; and she
is only come into her own for that matter, so she can pay the priest to
say masses for him, and that is a great comfort."

In the midst of their gossip, Margaret, in whose ears it was all
buzzing, though she seemed lost in thought, got softly up, and crept
away with her eyes on the ground, and her brows bent.

"She hath forgotten I am with her," said Reicht Heynes ruefully.

She had her gossip out with Joan, and then went home.

She found Margaret seated cutting out a pelisse of grey cloth, and a
cape to match. Little Gerard was standing at her side, inside her left
arm, eyeing the work, and making it more difficult by wriggling about,
and fingering the arm with which she held the cloth steady, to all which
she submitted with imperturbable patience and complacency, Fancy a male
workman so entangled, impeded, worried!

"Ot's that, mammy?"

"A pelisse, my pet."

"Ot's a p'lisse?"

"A great frock. And this is the cape to't."

"Ot's it for?"

"To keep his body from the cold; and the cape is for his shoulders, or
to go over his head like the country folk. 'Tis for a hermit."

"Ot's a 'ermit?"

"A holy man that lives in a cave all by himself."

"In de dark?"

"Ay, whiles."

"Oh."

In the morning Reicht was sent to the hermit with the pelisse, and a
pound of thick candles.

As she was going out of the door Margaret said to her, "Said you whose
son Gerard was?"

"Nay, not I."

"Think, girl! How could he call him Gerard, son of Eli, if you had not
told him?"

Reicht persisted she ha