"Things will happen, trust me," she made answer. "Ay, dear maids, methinks it should be profitable for you." "Now, Aunt _Joyce_, I would you had not said that!" "Why, _Milly_?" "By reason that things which be profitable be alway dry and gloomsome." "Not alway, _Lettice Eden's_ daughter." I could not help but smile when Aunt _Joyce_ said this. For indeed, _Mother_ hath oft told us how, when she was a young maid like _Milly_, she did sorely hate all gloom and sorrowfulness, nor could not abide for to think thereon. And _Milly_ is much of that turn. "Then which of us shall keep the grand chronicle?" saith _Edith_, when we had made an end of laughing. "Why not all of you?" quoth Aunt _Joyce_. "Let each keep it a month a-piece, turn about." "And you, Aunt _Joyce_?" "Nay, I will keep no chronicles. I would not mind an' I writ my thoughts down of the last page, when it was finished." "But who shall read it?" said I. "There spake _Nell_!" quoth _Milly_. "`Who shall read it?' Why, all the world, for sure, from the Queen's Majesty down to Cat and Kitling." These be our two serving-maids, _Kate_ and _Caitlin_, which _Milly_ doth affect dearly to call Cat and Kitling. And truly the names come pat, the rather that _Kate_ is tall and big, and fair of complexion, she being _Westmoreland_ born; while _Caitlin_, which is _Cumberland_ born, is little and wiry, and of dark complexion. "The Queen's Majesty shall have other fish to fry, I reckon," saith Aunt _Joyce_. "And so shall _Kate_ and _Caitlin_,--if they could read." "But who is to make a beginning of this mighty chronicle?" saith _Edith_. "Some other than I, as I do trust, for I would never know what to set down first." "Let _Nell_ begin, then, as she is eldest of the three," quoth Aunt _Joyce_. So here am I, making this same beginning of the family chronicle. For when _Father_ and _Mother_ heard thereof, both laughed at the first, and afterward grew sad. Then saith _Mother_-- "Methinks, dear hearts, it shall be well for you,--at the least, an' ye keep it truly. Let each set down what verily she doth think." "And not what she reckons she ought to think," saith Aunt _Joyce_. "Then, _Father_, will it please you give us some pens and paper?" said I. "For I see not how, elsewise, we shall write a chronicle." "That speech is right, _Nell_!" puts in _Milly_. "Why, if we dwelt on the banks of the _Nile_, in _Egypt_," saith _Father_, "reeds and bulrushes should serve your turn: or, were ye old _Romans_, a waxen tablet and iron stylus. But for _English_ maidens dwelling by Lake _Derwentwater_, I count paper and pens shall be wanted--and ink too, belike. Thou shalt have thy need supplied, _Nell_!"