ay
in its swaddling-clothes.

She was but a little lady, and now, as she lay in the large bed, her face
and form shrunken and drawn with suffering, she looked scarce bigger than
a child. In the brief days of her happiness those who toasted her had
called her Titania for her fairy slightness and delicate beauty, but then
her fair wavy locks had been of a length that touched the ground when her
woman unbound them, and she had had the colour of a wild rose and the
eyes of a tender little fawn. Sir Jeoffry for a month or so had paid
tempestuous court to her, and had so won her heart with his dashing way
of love-making and the daringness of his reputation, that she had thought
herself--being child enough to think so--the luckiest young lady in the
world that his black eye should have fallen upon her with favour. Each
year since, with the bearing of each child, she had lost some of her
beauty. With each one her lovely hair fell out still more, her wild-rose
colour faded, and her shape was spoiled. She grew thin and yellow, only
a scant covering of the fair hair was left her, and her eyes were big and
sunken. Her marriage having displeased her family, and Sir Jeoffry
having a distaste for the ceremonies of visiting and entertainment, save
where his own cronies were concerned, she had no friends, and grew
lonelier and lonelier as the sad years went by. She being so without
hope and her life so dreary, her children were neither strong nor
beautiful, and died quickly, each one bringing her only the anguish of
birth and death. This wintry morning her ninth lay slumbering by her
side; the noise of baying dogs and boisterous men had died away with the
last sound of the horses' hoofs; the little light which came into the
room through the ivied window was a faint yellowish red; she was cold,
because the fire in the chimney was but a scant, failing one; she was
alone--and she knew that the time had come for her death. This she knew
full well.

She was alone, because, being so disrespected and deserted by her lord,
and being of a timid and gentle nature, she could not command her
insufficient retinue of servants, and none served her as was their duty.
The old woman Sir Jeoffry had dubbed Mother Posset had been her sole
attendant at such times as these for the past five years, because she
would come to her for a less fee than a better woman, and Sir Jeoffry had
sworn he would not pay for wenches being brought into the world. S