"All?" said Martin. And he fixed his eyes on the Well-House, where it made no difference. "Most of us, anyhow," said Joscelyn; "and whoever isn't ready is--nearly ready." "Yet most is not all, and nearly is not quite," said Martin, "and would you be satisfied if I could only tell you most of my story, and was obliged to break off when it was nearly done? Alas, with me it must be the whole or nothing, and I cannot make a beginning unless I can see the end." "All beginnings must have endings," said Joscelyn, "so begin at once, and the end will follow of itself." "Yet suppose it were some other end than I set out for?" said Martin. "There's no telling with these endings that go of themselves. We mean one thing, but they mistake our meaning and show us another. Like the simple maid who was sent to fetch her lady's slippers and her lady's smock, and brought the wrong ones." "She must have been some ignorant maid from a town," said Jane, "if she did not know lady-smocks and lady's-slippers when she saw them." "It was either her mistake or her lady's," said Martin carelessly. "You shall judge which." And he tuned his lute and, still looking at the Well-House, sang: The Lady sat in a flood of tears All of her sweet eyes' shedding. "To-morrow, to-morrow the paths of sorrow Are the paths that I'll be treading." So she sent her lass for her slippers of black, But the careless lass came running back With slippers as bright As fairy gold Or noonday light, That were heeled and soled To dance in at a wedding. The Lady sat in a storm of sighs Raised by her own heart-searching. "To-morrow must I in the churchyard lie Because love is an urchin." So she sent her lass for her sable frock, But the silly lass brought a silken smock So fair to be seen With a rosy shade And a lavender sheen, That was only made For a bride to come from church in. Now as Martin sang, Gillian got first on her elbow, and then on her knees, and last upright on her two feet. And her face was turned full on the duckpond, and her eyes gazed as though she could see more and further than any other woman in the world, and her two hands held her heart as though but for this it must follow her eyes and be lost to her for ever. "So far as I can see," said Joscelyn, "there's nothing to choose between the foolishness of the maid and that of the mistress. But since Gillian appears to have risen to some sense in it, for goodness' sake, before she sinks back on her own folly, tell us your tale and be done with it!" "It is ready now," said Martin, "from start to finish. Glass is not clearer nor daylight plainer to me than the conclusion of the whole, and if you will listen for a very few instants, you shall see as certainly as I the ending of The Imprisoned Princess." THE IMPRISONED PRINCESS There was once, dear maidens, a Princess who was kept on an island. (Joscelyn: There are no islands in Sussex.