Amphillis neither came in nor shut the door. She held it in her hand, while she said in a shy way, "The patties are ready to come forth, if one of you will come," and then she disappeared, as if frightened of staying a minute longer than she could help. "`Ready to come forth!'" echoed Ricarda. "Cannot the stupid thing take them forth by herself?" "I bade her not do so," explained her sister, "but call one of us--she is so unhandy. Go thou, Ricarda, or she'll be setting every one wrong side up." Ricarda, with a martyr-like expression--which usually means an expression very unlike a martyr's--rose and followed Amphillis. Alexandra, thus left alone with Clement, became so extra amiable as to set that not over-wise youth on a pinnacle of ecstasy, until she heard her father's step, when she dismissed him hastily. She did not need to have been in a hurry, for the patty-maker was stopped before he reached the threshold, by a rather pompous individual in white and blue livery. Liveries were then worn far more commonly than now--not by servants only, but by officials of all kinds, and by gentlemen retainers of the nobles--sometimes even by nobles themselves. To wear a friend's livery was one of the highest compliments that could be paid. Mr Altham knew by a glance at his costume that the man who had stopped him bore some office in the household of the Duke of Lancaster, since he not only wore that Prince's livery, but bore his badge, the ostrich feather ermine, affixed to his left sleeve. "Master Altham the patty-maker, I take it?" "He, good my master, and your servant." "A certain lady would fain wit of you, Master, if you have at this present dwelling with you a daughter named Amphillis?" "I have no daughter of that name. I have two daughters, whose names be Alexandra and Ricarda, that dwell with me; likewise one wedded, named Isabel. I have a niece named Amphillis." "That dwelleth with you?" "Ay, she doth at this present, sithence my sister, her mother, is departed [dead]; but--" "You have had some thought of putting her forth, maybe?" Mr Altham looked doubtful. "Well! we have talked thereof, I and my maids; but no certain end was come to thereabout." "That is it which the lady has heard. Mistress Walton the silkwoman, at the Wheelbarrow, spake with this lady, saying such a maid there was, for whom you sought service; and the lady wotteth [knows] of a gentlewoman with whom she might be placed an' she should serve, and the service suited your desires for her." "Pray you, come within, and let us talk thereon at our leisure. I am beholden to Mistress Walton; she knew I had some thoughts thereanent [about it], and she hath done me a good turn to name it."