gnes, almost severely.

"Ah me!" and Constance gaped (or, as she would herself have said,
"goxide.") "I would I were a woodman's daughter."

Dame Agnes de La Marche, [see Note 2], whose whole existence had been
spent in the scented atmosphere of Court life, stared at the child in
voiceless amazement.

"I would so, Dame. I might sit then of the rushes, let be the stools,
or in a fieldy nook amid the wild flowers. And Dona Juana would not be
ever laying siege to me--with `Dona Constanca, you will soil your
robes!'--or, `Dona Constanca, you will rend your lace!'--or, `Dona
Constanca, you will dirty your fingers!' Where is the good of being
rich and well-born, if I must needs sit under a cloth of estate [a
canopy] all the days of my life, and dare not so much as to lift a pin
from the floor, lest I dirty my puissant and royal fingers? I would
liefer have a blacksmith to my grandsire than a King."

"Lady Custance! With which of her Grace's scullion maidens have you
demeaned yourself to talk?"

"I will tell thee, when thou wilt answer when I was suffered to say so
much as `Good morrow' to any maid under the degree of a knight's
daughter."

"Holy Mary, be our aid!" interjected the horrified old lady.

"I am aweary, Dame Agnes," said the child, laying herself down in the
chair, as nearly at full length as its size would allow. "I have played
the damosel [person of rank--used of the younger nobility of both sexes]
so long time, I would fain be a little maid a season. I looked forth
from the lattice this morrow, and I saw far down in the base court a
little maid the bigness of me, washing of pans at a window. Now,
prithee, have yon little maid up hither, and set her under the cloth of
estate in my velvets, and leave me run down to the base court and wash
the pans. It were rare mirth for both of us."

Dame Agnes shook her head, as if words failed to express her feelings at
so unparalleled a proposal.

"What sangst thou as I was a-coming in?" asked the child, dropping a
subject on which she found no sympathy.

"'Twas but an old song, Lady, of your Grace's grandsire King Edward
(whom God assoil! [pardon]) and his war of France."

"That was ere I was born. Was it ere thou wert, Dame?"

"Truly no, Lady," said Agnes, smiling; "nor ere my Lord your father."

"What manner of lad was my Lord my father, when he was little?"

"Rare meek and gent, Lady,--for a lad, and his ire saved." [Except when
he was angry.]