"Mistress Perrote, I pray you counsel me. I am sore put to it to baffle my cousin's inquirations touching our Lady. How she cometh to know there is any such cannot I say; but I may lightly guess that Agatha hath let it 'scape: and in old days mine uncle was wont to say, none never could keep hidlis [secrets] from Ricarda. Truly, might I have known aforehand my Lady Foljambe's pleasure, I could have found to mine hand to pray her not to advance Ricarda hither: not for that I would stand in her way, but for my Lady's sake herself." "I know. Nay, as well not, Phyllis. It should tend rather to thine own disease, for folk might lightly say thou wert jealous and unkindly to thy kin. The Lord knoweth wherefore such things do hap. At times I think it be to prevent us from being here in earth more blissful than it were good for us to be. As for her inquirations, parry them as best thou mayest; and if thou canst not, then say apertly [openly] that thou art forbidden to hold discourse thereanentis." Amphillis shook her head. She pretty well knew that such an assertion would whet Ricarda's curiosity, and increase her inquisitive queries. "Mistress Perrote, are you ill at ease?" "Not in health, thank God. But I am heavy of heart, child. Our Lady is in evil case, and she is very old." We should not now call a woman very old who was barely sixty years of age; we scarcely think that more than elderly. But in 1373, when the numerous wars and insurrections of the earlier half of the century had almost decimated the population, so that, especially in the upper classes, an old man was rarely to be seen, and when also human life was usually shorter than in later times, sixty was the equivalent of eighty or ninety with us, while seventy was as wonderful as we think a hundred. King Edward was in his second childhood when he died at sixty-five; while "old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster," scarcely passed his fifty-ninth birthday. "Is she sick?" said Amphillis, pityingly. She had not seen her mistress for several days, for her periods of attendance on her were fitful and uncertain. "She is very sick, and Father Jordan hath tried his best."