hirteen years. An'
ye have them elder, they will needs count they know as much as you, and
can return a sharp answer betimes. I love not masterful childre."

"But would you not she were something learned?"

"Nay! So she wit not a pig's head from a crustade Almayne, [A kind of
pie of custard or batter, with currants] 'tis all one to me, an' she
will do my bidding."

"Then methinks I could right well fit you. We have here at this instant
moment a small maid of twelve years, that my Lady the Prioress were well
fain to put with such as you be, and she bade me give heed to the same.
'Tis a waif that Anthony, our goatherd, found in the forest, with her
mother, that was frozen to death in an hard winter; but the child abode,
and was saved. Truly, for cunning there is little in her; but for
meekness and readiness to do your will, the maid is as good as any. But
ye shall see her I think on."

Sister Oliva stepped to the door, and spoke in a low tone to some person
outside. She came back and reseated herself, and a minute afterwards
there was a low, timid tap at the door.

"Come in, child," said the nun.

And Maude came in.

She was small and slight for her twelve years, and preternaturally
grave. A quantity of long dark hair hung round her head in a condition
of seemingly hopeless tanglement, and the dark eyes, proportionately
larger than the rest of the features, wore an expression of mingled
apathy and suspicion, alike strange and painful to see in the eyes of a
child.

"Come forward, Maude, and speak with Mistress Drew. Mercy on us, child!
how hast moiled thine hair like a fowl his pennes!" [Feathers.]

Maude made no reply. She came a few steps nearer, dropped a rustic
courtesy, and stood to be questioned.

"What is thy name?" inquired Mistress Ursula, as though she were
beginning the catechism.

"Maude," said the child under her breath.

"And what years hast--twelve?"

"Twelve, the last Saint Margaret."

"And where wert born? Dost know?"

Maude knew, though for some reason with which she herself was best
acquainted, she had been much more chary of her information to my Lady
the Prioress than she now chose to be.

"At Pleshy, in Essex."

"And what work did thy father?"

Maude looked up with a troubled air, as if the idea of that relative's
possible existence had never suggested itself to her.

"I never had any father!" she said, in a pained tone. "Cousin Hawise
had a father, and he wroug