"And hast marked how the dough, ere he be set in the oven, should take any pattern thou list to set him on?" "Ay." "Then thou hast seen what the Lord Earl is like." "But who setteth pattern on the Lord Earl?" inquired Maude, looking up in some surprise. "All the world, saving my Lady his wife, and likewise in his wrath. Hast ever seen one of our Princes in a passion of ire?" "Never had I luck yet to see one of their Graces," said Maude reverently. "Then thou wist not what a man _can_ be like when he is angered." "But not, I ensure me, the Lady Custance!" objected Maude, loth to surrender her Fairy Queen. "Wait awhile and see!" was the ominous answer. "Methought she were sweet and fair as my Lady her mother," said Maude in a disappointed tone. "`Sweet and fair'!--and soft, is my Lady Countess. Why, child, she should hardly say this kirtle were red, an' Dame Joan told her it were green. Thou mayest do aught with her, an' thou wist how to take her." "How take you her?" demanded Maude gravely. "By 'r Lady! have yonder fond [foolish] books of the Lutterworth parson at thy tongue's end, and make up a sad face, and talk of faith and grace and forgiving of sins and the like, and mine head to yon shred of tinsel an' she give thee not a gown within the se'nnight." "But, Mistress Alvena! that were to be an hypocrite, an' you felt it not." "Hu-te-tu! We be all hypocrites. Some of us feign for one matter, and some for other. I wis somewhat thereabout, child; for ere I came hither was I maid unto the Lady Julian [a fictitious person], recluse of Tamworth Priory. By our dear Lady her girdle! saw I nothing of hypocrisy there!" "You never signify, Mistress, that the blessed recluse was an hypocrite?" "The blessed recluse was mighty fond of sweetbreads," said Alvena, taking a pin out of her mouth, "and many an one smuggled I in to her under my cloak, when Father Luke thought she was a-fasting on bread and water. And one clereful [glorious] night had we, she and I, when one that I knew had shot me a brace of curlews, and coming over moorland by the church, he dropped them--all by chance, thou wist!--by the door of the cell. And I, oping the door--to see if it rained, trow!--found these birds a-lying there. Had we no supper that night!--and 'twas a vigil even. The blessed martyr or apostle (for I mind me not what day it were) forgive us!" "But how dressed you them?" said Maude. Alvena stopped in her fitting and pinning to laugh. "Thou sely maid! The sacristan was my mother's brother." Maude looked up as if she did not see the inference. "I roasted them in the sacristy, child. The priests were all gone home to bed; and so soon as the ground were clear, mine uncle rapped of the door; and the Lady Julian came after me to the sacristy, close lapped in my cloak--"