Dame Agnes de La Marche, [see Note 2], whose whole existence had been spent in the scented atmosphere of Court life, stared at the child in voiceless amazement. "I would so, Dame. I might sit then of the rushes, let be the stools, or in a fieldy nook amid the wild flowers. And Dona Juana would not be ever laying siege to me--with `Dona Constanca, you will soil your robes!'--or, `Dona Constanca, you will rend your lace!'--or, `Dona Constanca, you will dirty your fingers!' Where is the good of being rich and well-born, if I must needs sit under a cloth of estate [a canopy] all the days of my life, and dare not so much as to lift a pin from the floor, lest I dirty my puissant and royal fingers? I would liefer have a blacksmith to my grandsire than a King." "Lady Custance! With which of her Grace's scullion maidens have you demeaned yourself to talk?" "I will tell thee, when thou wilt answer when I was suffered to say so much as `Good morrow' to any maid under the degree of a knight's daughter." "Holy Mary, be our aid!" interjected the horrified old lady. "I am aweary, Dame Agnes," said the child, laying herself down in the chair, as nearly at full length as its size would allow. "I have played the damosel [person of rank--used of the younger nobility of both sexes] so long time, I would fain be a little maid a season. I looked forth from the lattice this morrow, and I saw far down in the base court a little maid the bigness of me, washing of pans at a window. Now, prithee, have yon little maid up hither, and set her under the cloth of estate in my velvets, and leave me run down to the base court and wash the pans. It were rare mirth for both of us." Dame Agnes shook her head, as if words failed to express her feelings at so unparalleled a proposal. "What sangst thou as I was a-coming in?" asked the child, dropping a subject on which she found no sympathy. "'Twas but an old song, Lady, of your Grace's grandsire King Edward (whom God assoil! [pardon]) and his war of France." "That was ere I was born. Was it ere thou wert, Dame?" "Truly no, Lady," said Agnes, smiling; "nor ere my Lord your father." "What manner of lad was my Lord my father, when he was little?" "Rare meek and gent, Lady,--for a lad, and his ire saved." [Except when he was angry.] Dame Agnes saved her conscience by the last clause, for gentle as Prince Edmund had generally been, he was as capable of going into a genuine Plantagenet passion as any of his more fiery brothers. "But a maiden must be meeker and gentler?" "Certes, Damosel," said Agnes, spinning away. The child reclined in her chair for a time in silence. Perhaps it was the suddenness of the next question which made the old lady drop her distaff. "Dame, who is Sir John de Wycliffe?" The distaff had to be recovered before the question could be considered. "Ask at Dame Joan, Lady," was the discreet reply. "So I did; and she bade me ask at thee." "A priest, methinks," said Agnes vaguely.