Said she: "Are they kind to thee?" The lad drew himself up: "I am kind to them," said he. "How goodly thou art!" she said; "that was why I dreamed thou must be of the Land-wights, because I have seen divers men, some old, some young like to thee, but none half so goodly." He smiled, and said: "Well, I thought thou wert of the Faery because thou art goodly and little. I have seen a pretty maid not long since, but she was older than thou, I deem, and far taller. But tell me, how old art thou?" She said: "When May is half worn I shall be of thirteen winters." "Lo now," said he, "we be nigh of an age; I was thirteen in early April. But thou hast not told me where thou dwellest, and how." She said: "I dwell at Hartshaw Knolls hard by. I am the daughter of a goodman, as thou art, and my father and mother are dead, so that my father I never saw, and now I dwell with my two aunts and they be both older than was my mother." "Are they kind to thee?" said the lad, laughing that he must cast back her question. "Whiles," said she, laughing also, "and whiles not: maybe that is because I am not always kind to them, as thou art to thy folk." He answered nought, and she was silent a while; then he said: "What is in thy mind, maiden?" "This," she said, "that I am thinking how fair a chance it was that I should have seen thee, for thou hast made me so glad." Said he: "We can see each other again belike and make it less of a chance." "O yea," she said, and was silent a while. Said he: "I wot not why it was that thou wert in the cave: and tell me, is it not exceeding perilous, the climbing up and down? Why wilt thou do that? Also, I must tell thee, that this was another cause why I thought thou wert of the Faery, that thou camest out of the cave." Said she: "I will tell thee all about the cave; but first as to the peril of going thither and coming hence: wouldst thou be very sorry if I were lost on the way?" "Yea," said he, "exceeding sorry." "Well," said she, "then fear it not, for it is so much a wont of mine that to me there is no peril therein: yet I am glad that thou wert afraid for me." "I was sore afraid," said Osberne. "Now as to the cave," said the maiden. "I found it out two years ago, when I was very little, and the women had been less than kind to me. And thither may I go whenas I would that they should seek me not; because folk say that it is a dwelling of the Dwarfs, and they fear to enter it. Besides, when I think of my kinswomen coming down the rock to find me therein, and they be tall, and one stiff, as if she were cut out of timber, and the other exceeding fat, that makes me merry!"