“Thou requirest much exercise in thy growing, Charity, to keep supple thy joints—thou canst sometimes walk to the market-town for our absolute wants, which are not many, and as for the wheat-grist, thou shalt have a mortar and beat it into flour; so Lily-face would but burden us now, and the corn and the oat-sheaves, and the hay that have been heaped in her manger, may be sold. “One beast is enough for a poor body like me, and thou knowest I will neither barter nor sell Wolf-slayer till the time cometh for the nailing of the boards to my coffin. And forget not, Charity, that they lie in the loft, well-seasoned for the using, and for thy life, let them not buy others in their stead.” “Far away be the time, good grandam,” sighed the girl. “But the young die, too; and should I need them first, wilt thou not keep a light, at least of fagots, the whiles I am dead in the house?” Foolish child! though it were darker than tempest may make it, and I the while slept never so sound, no harm could come to thy white corse, if Wolf-slayer lay by thy coffin. At the sound of her name, a great black beast, with eyes burning like coals, and lean and shaggy, crept from the darkest corner of the room, and laying her head in the lap of Margery, licked her jaws and whined piteously. “Away with thee, saucy image,” growled the mistress, “thou hadst the third part of a corn-ear at the sunset, and thinkest thou, black wench, I will give thee more?” and crouching and whining the hungry beast slunk back to the corner, and curling herself together, filled the room presently with her snore. “Poor Lily-face!” said the child, speaking as it were to herself, “how can I let thee go! Morning and evening, since I could toddle, I have put my arms around thy glossy neck, broken the ears of corn into small bits, and pressed the golden oat-sheaves through thy manger—and thou hast neighed and put thy face against mine, for thou lovest me, as I thee. Poor Lily-face! I cannot let thee go!” “What if thou mightst look in the corner here and see the bright, shining face of a pretty clock instead of the cobwebs and the hanks of yarn—if thou couldst hear the pleasant tick, and ever and anon the musical ring of the hours—a clock, bethink thee, bright of color as the autumn oak-leaves, and tall as thy grandam.” “It would be pretty and comforting, surely,” said the child, “for the ticking and the stroke of the hours would be company in the lonesome nights, but I would not give Lily-face, that knows me when I speak, and looks at me and loves me, to have a clock bright as the oaken autumn leaves, and tall as thou, grandam, in place of the hanks of yarn and the cobwebs.” “Thou knowest not thy own mind,” said Dame Margery; “the clock will neither eat nor drink, but will tell us the time of day and night; which Lily-face hath not wit to do. By the light of the last sunset, I have no mind that she shall longer stamp in that stall of hers.