short height, with ripples, and little murmurs, and a clear tinkling sound. But she was ne'er more at rest than the leaves on an aspen-tree. Hither and thither would she flit, this way and that, up and down, round and round, backward and forward, about and about. I' faith, ofttimes would I be right dizzy come nightfall, with following of her; for ere I had been at the castle a day, she took so mighty a fancy to me, that naught would do but she must have me for her maid; and so my lady, who (God pardon my boldness!) did utterly spoil her in all things, gave me unto her as a nurse-maid.--But sure ye are a-weary o' this old tale! _Lady Dorothy and Lord Humphrey in a breath._--Nay, go on, go on. _Nurse Crumpet._--Well, well, o' all the story-loving bairns! But I must invent me a new history for the next time o' telling. _Lord Humphrey._--Nay, that thou shalt not. We will ne'er like any as well as we like this one. So despatch. _Nurse Crumpet._--But my lady had also an adopted daughter, a niece o' my lord's--one Mistress Marian Every--and she walked beside the little Lady Patience as night might walk beside day, for she was as brown o' skin as a mountain stream, and her hair like a cloud at even-tide, dark, but of no certain color, albeit as soft as ravelled silk, and marvellous hard to comb on account o' its fineness. Mistress Marian was full head and shoulders taller than her cousin, the Lady Patience, and she could lift her aloft in her arms, and swing her from side to side, as a supple bough swings a bird. And her eyes were dark, and cool to gaze into, like a pool o' clear water o'er autumn leaves, and sometimes there were glints o' light in them, like the spikes i' th' evening-star when thou dost gaze steadily upon it. Black and white were not more different than were they, and they resembled even less in mind than they did in body. When Lady Patience waxed wroth, her cheeks burned like two coals, and thou couldst hear her little teeth grinding together, like pebbles squeezed i' th' palm o' thy hand; but when Mistress Marian was an-angered, the blood rushed back to her heart, and she was whiter than a lamb at the shearing, and her lips like white threads. Then would the light shoot and spin in her eyes, and her nostrils suck in and out, like those of a fretful horse. And she was fierce after the manner of a man rather than of a maid. Moreo'er, she was full a year younger than the Lady Patience; but she looked it not; rather did her ladyship look full two years younger than Mistress Marian. And I loved them both, and tried as a Christian not to prefer one before the other; but what with my lady's stealings of her arms about my neck as I sat at my stitchery, and popping of comfits in my pocket when I would be otherwise engaged, and teasings, and ticklings, and sundry other pretty witcheries which I do not at this day recall, I was fairly cozened into loving her the best. (Honey, I charge thee hold my fan betwixt thee and the fire.) But to