Earl?" inquired Maude, looking up
in some surprise.

"All the world, saving my Lady his wife, and likewise in his wrath.
Hast ever seen one of our Princes in a passion of ire?"

"Never had I luck yet to see one of their Graces," said Maude
reverently.

"Then thou wist not what a man _can_ be like when he is angered."

"But not, I ensure me, the Lady Custance!" objected Maude, loth to
surrender her Fairy Queen.

"Wait awhile and see!" was the ominous answer.

"Methought she were sweet and fair as my Lady her mother," said Maude in
a disappointed tone.

"`Sweet and fair'!--and soft, is my Lady Countess. Why, child, she
should hardly say this kirtle were red, an' Dame Joan told her it were
green. Thou mayest do aught with her, an' thou wist how to take her."

"How take you her?" demanded Maude gravely.

"By 'r Lady! have yonder fond [foolish] books of the Lutterworth parson
at thy tongue's end, and make up a sad face, and talk of faith and grace
and forgiving of sins and the like, and mine head to yon shred of tinsel
an' she give thee not a gown within the se'nnight."

"But, Mistress Alvena! that were to be an hypocrite, an' you felt it
not."

"Hu-te-tu! We be all hypocrites. Some of us feign for one matter, and
some for other. I wis somewhat thereabout, child; for ere I came hither
was I maid unto the Lady Julian [a fictitious person], recluse of
Tamworth Priory. By our dear Lady her girdle! saw I nothing of
hypocrisy there!"

"You never signify, Mistress, that the blessed recluse was an
hypocrite?"

"The blessed recluse was mighty fond of sweetbreads," said Alvena,
taking a pin out of her mouth, "and many an one smuggled I in to her
under my cloak, when Father Luke thought she was a-fasting on bread and
water. And one clereful [glorious] night had we, she and I, when one
that I knew had shot me a brace of curlews, and coming over moorland by
the church, he dropped them--all by chance, thou wist!--by the door of
the cell. And I, oping the door--to see if it rained, trow!--found
these birds a-lying there. Had we no supper that night!--and 'twas a
vigil even. The blessed martyr or apostle (for I mind me not what day
it were) forgive us!"

"But how dressed you them?" said Maude.

Alvena stopped in her fitting and pinning to laugh.

"Thou sely maid! The sacristan was my mother's brother."

Maude looked up as if she did not see the inference.

"I roasted them in the sacristy, child. The pri