Poor child, would he ever be fit for that or any occupation of manhood? However, Grisell had won permission to compound broths, cakes, and possets for him, over the hall fire, for the cook and his wife would not endure her approach to their domain, and with great reluctance allowed her the materials. Bernard watched her operations with intense delight and amusement, and tasted with a sense of triumph and appetite, calling on his mother to taste likewise; and she, on whose palate semi-raw or over-roasted joints had begun to pall, allowed that the nuns had taught Grisell something. And thus as time went on Grisell led no unhappy life. Every one around was used to her scars, and took no notice of them, and there was nothing to bring the thought before her, except now and then when a fishwife’s baby, brought to her for cure, would scream at her. She never went beyond the castle except to mass, now and then to visit a sick person, and to seek some of the herbs of which she had learnt the use, and then she was always attended by Thora and Ridley, who made a great favour of going. Bernard had given her the greater part of his heart, and she soothed his pain, made his hours happy, and taught him the knowledge she brought from the convent. Her affections were with him, and though her mother could scarcely be said to love her, she tolerated and depended more and more on the daughter who alone could give her more help or solace. That was Grisell’s second victory, when she was actually asked to compound a warm, relishing, hot bowl for her father when be was caught in a storm and came in drenched and weary. She wanted to try on her little brother the effect of one of Sister Avice’s ointments, which she thought more likely to be efficacious than melted mutton fat, mixed with pounded worms, scrapings from the church bells, and boiled seaweed, but some of her ingredients were out of reach, unless they were attainable at Sunderland, and she obtained permission to ride thither under the escort of Cuthbert Ridley, and was provided with a small purse—the proceeds of the Baron’s dues out of the fishermen’s sales of herrings. She was also to purchase a warm gown and mantle for her mother, and enough of cloth to afford winter garments for Bernard; and a steady old pack-horse carried the bundles of yarn to be exchanged for these commodities, since the Whitburn household possessed no member dexterous with the old disused loom, and the itinerant weavers did not come that way—it was whispered because they were afraid of the fisher folk, and got but sorry cheer from the lady.