g
in an upper chamber of Langley Palace. She paused a moment in her work,
and then took up again the latter half of the strain.

"`And Mary moder of mercy fre'--Called any yonder?"

"May I come in, Dame Agnes?" said a child's voice at the door.

The old lady rose hastily, laid down her distaff, and opening the door,
courtesied low to the little girl of ten years old who stood outside.

"Enter freely, most gracious Lady! Wherefore abide without?"

It was a pretty vision which entered. Not that there was any special
beauty in the child herself, for in that respect she was merely on the
pretty side of ordinary. She was tall for her age--as tall as Maude,
though she was two years younger. Her complexion was very fair, her
hair light with a golden tinge, and her eyes of a peculiar shade of
blue, bright, yet deep--the shade known as blue eyes in Spain, but
rarely seen in England. But her costume was a study for a painter.
Little girls dressed like women in the fourteenth century; and this
child wore a blue silk tunic embroidered with silver harebells, over a
brown velvet skirt spangled with rings of gold. Her hair was put up in
a net of golden tissue, ornamented with pearls. The dress was cut
square at the neck; she wore a pearl necklace, and a girdle of turquoise
and pearls. Two rows of pearls and turquoise finished the sleeves at
the wrist; they were of brown velvet, like the skirt. This finery was
evidently nothing new to the little wearer. She came into the room and
flung herself carelessly down on a small stool, close to the chair where
Dame Agnes had been sitting--to the unfeigned horror of that courtly
person.

"Lady, Lady! Not on a stool, for love of the blessed Mary!"

And drawing forward an immense old arm-chair, Dame Agnes motioned the
child to take it.

"Remember, pray you, that you be a Prince's daughter!" [See Note 1.]

The child rose with some reluctance, and climbed into the enormous
chair, in which she seemed almost lost.

"Prithee, Dame Agnes, is it because I be a Prince's daughter that I must
needs be let from sitting whither I would?"

"There is meetness in all things," said the old lady, picking up her
distaff.

"And what meetness is in setting the like of me in a chair that would
well hold Charlemagne and his twelve Peers?" demanded the little girl,
laughing.

"The twelve Peers of Charlemagne, such saved as were Princes, were not
the like of _you_, Lady Custance," said Dame A