"Quite as well. I am astonished thou hast come thither no sooner. And then?" "Well,--I know not what then. You drive one on, Aunt _Joyce_. Methinks, then, I would come home and see you all, and recount mine aventures." "Oh, mightily obliged to your Highness!" quoth Aunt _Joyce_. "I had thought, when your Majesty were thus up at top of the tree, you should forget utterly so mean a place as _Selwick_ Hall, and the contemptible things that inhabit there. And then?" "Come, I will make an end," saith _Milly_, laughing. "I reckon I should be a bit wearied by then, and fain to bide at home and take mine ease." "And pray, what hindereth that your Grace should do that now?" saith Aunt _Joyce_, looking up with a comical face. "Well, but I am not aweary, and have no aventures to tell," _Milly_ makes answer. "Go into the garden and jump five hundred times, _Milly_, and I will warrant thee to be aweary and thankful for rest. And as to aventures,-- eh, my maid, my maid!" And Aunt _Joyce_ and _Mother_ smiled one upon the other. "Now, _Mother_ and _Aunt_, may I say what I think?" cries Milly. "Prithee, so do, my maid." "Then, why do you folks that be no longer young, ever damp and chill young folks that would fain see the world and have some jollity?" "By reason, _Milly_, that we have been through the world, and we know it to be a damp place and a cold." "But all folks do not find it so?" "God have mercy on them that do not!" "Now, _Aunt_, what mean you?" "Dear heart, the brighter the colour of the poisoned sweetmeat, the more like is the babe to put in his mouth." "Your parable is above me, Aunt _Joyce_." "_Milly_, a maiden must give her heart to something. The Lord's word unto us all is, Give Me thine heart. But most of us will try every thing else first. And every thing else doth chill and disappoint us. Yet thou never sawest man nor Woman that had given the heart to God, which could ever say with truth that disappointment had come of it." "I reckon they should be unready to confess the same," saith she. "They be ready enough to confess it of other things," quoth Aunt _Joyce_. "But few folks will learn by the blunders of any but their own selves. I would thou didst." "By whose blunders would you have me learn, _Aunt_?" saith _Milly_ in her saucy fashion that is yet so bright and coaxing that she rarely gets flitten [scolded] for the same. "By those of whomsoever thou seest to blunder," quoth she. "That must needs be thee, _Edith_," saith _Milly_ in a demure voice. "For it standeth with reason, as thou very well wist, that I shall never see mine elders to make no blunders of no sort whatever." "Thou art a saucy baggage, _Milly_," quoth Aunt _Joyce_. "That shall cost thee six pence an' it go down in the chronicle." "Oh, 'tis not yet my turn for to write, _Aunt_. And I am well assured _Nell_ shall pay no sixpences." "Fewer than thou, I dare guess," saith Aunt _Joyce_. "Who has been to visit old _Jack Benn_ this week?"