"Dame, it is seven crowns for the hood I wrought, and three more for a girdle was owing aforetime, and now four for kerchiefs broidering: it is fourteen crowns in all. I should not need to ask charity if I could but be paid my earnings. The apothecary said our mother was sick rather from sorrow and want of nourishment than from any malady; and if the good Dame would pay me, I might not only buy fresh matter for my work, but perchance get food that would make my mother well--at least well enough to sew, and then we should have two pairs of hands instead of one. I do not beg, Dame!" She louted low as she spoke, and took her little sister again by the hand. "Come, Iolande; we keep Madame waiting." "But hast thou got no money?" pleaded the barne. "Thou saidst to Madeleine that we should bring some supper back. Thou didst, Hilda!" "I did, darling," allowed her sister, looking a little ashamed. "I could not peace the babe else, and--I hoped we should." I could bear no more. The truth of those maids' story was in the little one's bitter disappointment, and in poor Hilda's hungry eyes. Eyes speak sooth, though lips be false. "Come," said I. "I pray you, tarry but one moment more. You shall not lose by it." "We are at Madame's service," said Hilda. I ran up degrees as fast as ever I could. As the saints would have it, that very minute I oped the door, was Dame Elizabeth haling forth silver in her lap, and afore her stood the jeweller's man awaiting to be paid. Blame me who will, I fell straight on those gold pieces and silver crowns. "Fourteen crowns, Dame Elizabeth!" quoth I, all scant of breath. "Quick! give me them--for Hilda la Vileyne--and if no, may God forgive you, for I never will!" Soothly, had the Archangel Raphael brake into the chamber and demanded fourteen crowns, Dame Elizabeth could have gazed on him no more astonied than she did on me, Cicely, that she had seen nearhand every day of her life for over a dozen years. I gave her leave to look how it listed her. From the coins in her lap I counted forth nine nobles and a French crown, and was half-way down degrees again ere she well knew what I would be at. If I had had to pay her back every groat out of mine own purse--nay, verily, if I had stood to be beheaden for it--I would have had that money for Hilda la Vileyne that night. They stood where I had left them, by the door of the long gallery, near the _porte-cochere_, but now with them was a third--mine own Jack, that had but now come in from the street, and the child knew him again, as she well showed. "O Hilda!" I heard her say, as I came running down swiftly--for I was dread afraid Dame Elizabeth should overtake me and snatch back the money--and I might have spared my fears, for had I harried the Queen's crown along with her crowns, no such a thing should ever have come in her head--"O Hilda!" saith the child, "see here the good Messire who gave us the denier to buy soup."