"Oh yes, common Sisters may," quoth she. "Well," said I, "we cannot be all uncommon. I ensure thee, Denise, there are here many daughters of better houses than thine. Mother Ismania herself is daughter of an offshoot of the Percys, and Sister Isabel is a Neville by her mother. My Lady is a Fitzhugh of Ravenswath." "Well, Sisters!" came from behind us in my Lady's most sarcastic voice, "you choose a nice time for comparing your pedigrees. Maybe it were as well to leave that interesting amusement for recreation-time, and scrub the corridor just now." Sister Denise melted again into tears, and I turned to explain. "Your pail looks pretty full, Sister," said my Lady grimly: "much more water will make it overflow." "May it please you, Madam," said I, "Sister Denise is thus distressed because she, being a De La Pole, is set to scrubbing and such like menial work." "Oh, is she, indeed?" laughed my Lady. "Sister, do you know what Mother Annora is?" Sister Denise could only shake her head. "Her mother was grand-daughter to King Edward of Westminster," said my Lady. "If we three were in the world, I should be scantly fit to bear her train and you would be little better than her washerwoman. But I never heard her grumble to scour the corridor and she has done it more times than ever you thought about it. Foolish child, to suppose there was any degradation in honest work! Was not our blessed Lord Himself a carpenter? I warrant the holy Virgin kept her boards clean, and did not say she was too good to scrub. No woman alive is too good to do her duty." Sister Denise brake forth into fresh sobs. "A wa--wa--washerwoman! To be called a washerwoman! [Note 3.] Me, kinswoman of Sir Michael de La Pole, and Sir Richard to boot--a washerwo--woman!" "Don't be a goose!" said my Lady. "De La Pole, indeed! who be these De La Poles? Why, no more than merchants of Lombard Street, selling towelling at fivepence the ell, and coverchiefs of Cambray [Note 4] at seven shillings the piece. Truly a goodly pedigree to boast of thus loudly!" "But, Madam!" cries Sister Denise--her tears, methinks, burned up by her vexation--"bethink you, Sir Michael my cousin is a knight, and his wife the Lady Katherine heiress of Wingfield, and the Lady Katherine his mother 'longeth to the knights De Norwich. And look you, his sister is my Lady Scrope, and his cousin wedded the heir of the Lord Cobham of Kent."