“As thou sayest,” answered Margery, “it wears near the midnight, as is told by the shrill cry of the cricket, to say nothing of the aching in my bones, and the dizzy feeling that creeps along my forehead now and then;” and laying her skinny fingers over the wrinkles on her brow, she bowed her head forward for a minute, looking more like a witch making some unholy incantation, than a live human being, and a woman as she was. Her dress, summer and winter, was composed of cow-hide shoes, clasped over the ankles with buckles of brass, a gown of dark woolen stuff, made in a straight, stiff fashion peculiar to herself, and she wore over her shoulders a small circular cape, that had once been part of a tiger’s hide. On her head she wore no cap or other covering, and her gray hair was parted on the crown and combed either way, one half being cut in a straight line above her forehead, and the other on her neck. She seemed seventy, or thereabout—nevertheless, her hair was neither thin nor very white. “Thou hast wrought too hardly, grandam, mayhap,” said the child. “Fold up thy hands now, and the portion of the fleece that remaineth be mine to do;” as she spoke, she wound her arm about the neck of Margery, for she loved her, albeit she looked so repelling. “Nay, child,” answered the dame, “it is not often we have so pleasant a light, and pity ’twere to lose it. We must improve the advantages we have, little one, else want will be staring us in the face, and reproaching us with negligence when it is too late. I cannot work as I could with forty years less weighing me down, so I must do what I may.” “I saw,” said the child, “when I went to Farmer Jocelin’s, for the measure of meal thou wottest of, three good tallow-candles alight in one room. The noonday sun were scarce brighter,” she continued in amazement, both at the wondrous light and the prodigality. “He must have great estates, grandam, to maintain such indolent and luxurious life. True, Mistress Jocelin was at work with some knitting, but not heedfully nor diligently, but more attentive to the reading of a book, which, indeed, to look upon was very beautiful, for as Farmer Jocelin held it near the light, the edges of the leaves glittered like gold, and the leathern cover was bright as the bosom of the bird that sings in the peach-tree, here, in summer. But Master Lawrence—what, think you, he did by all that flood of light? Why, nothing for thrift; for he sat on the matting of the floor, cutting pieces of smooth brown paper into a kite. Yet he had a sweet smile, and seemed to have a good heart withal,” added Charity, and her fingers flew more nimbly through the wool, “for as he served round a salver of apples, at his mother’s bidding, he urged me to take one so earnestly, yet kindly, that I might scarce refuse, and when I did—for that I might not rob Farmer Jocelin of his substance, giving him nothing in turn—he forced one into my lap and ran laughingly aside, so that I might not return it.”