"Surely so, Madam." "Dame Joan speaketh well of thy cunning." [Skill.] Maude smiled and courtesied. She was gradually learning Court manners. "And hast thou yet thy book-leaf, the which I read unto thee?" "Oh ay, Madam!" "`Thy book-leaf!'" interjected Constance. "What book hast thou?" "A part of God's Word, my daughter," replied her mother gravely; "touching His great City, the holy Jerusalem, which shall come down from God out of Heaven, and is lightened with His glory." "When will it come?" said Constance, with unwonted gravity. "God wot. To all seeming, not ere thou and I be either within the same, or without His gates for ever." The Countess turned back to Maude. "My maid, thou wouldst fain know at that time whether I had any dwelling in that city. Wist thou that an' thou wilt, there thou mayest dwell?" "I, Madam! In very sooth, should it like your Grace to take me?" And Maude's eyes sparkled with delight. "I cannot take thee, my child!" was the reply, spoken in a tone so grave that it was almost sad. "If thou wouldst go, it is Another must bear thee thither." "The Lady Custance?" inquired Maude, glancing at her. "The Lord Jesus Christ." Agnes mechanically crossed herself. Maude's memory ran far back. "Sister Christian, that was a nun at Pleshy," she observed, dreamily, "was wont to say, long time agone, unto Mother and me, that holy Mary's Son did love us and die for us; but I never wist nought beyond that. Would your Grace, of your goodness, tell me wherefore it were?" "Wherefore He died? It was in the stead of thee, my maid, if thou wilt have it so: He died that thou mightest never die withouten end.--Or wherefore He loved, wouldst know? Truly, I can but bid thee ask that of Himself, for none wist that mystery save His own great heart. There was nought in us that He should love us; but there was every cause in Himself wherefore He should love." Maude was silent; but the thought which she was revolving in her mind was whether any great saint had ever asked such a question of Him who to her was only "holy Mary's Son." Of course it would have to be asked through Mary. No one, not even the greatest saint, considered Maude, had ever spoken direct to Him, except in a vision. The next remark of the Countess rather startled her. "My maid, dost ever pray?" "An' it like your Grace, I do say every even the Hail Mary, and every morrow the Credo; and of Sundays and holy days likewise the Paternoster." "And didst never feel no want ne lack, for the which thou findest not words in the Hail Mary ne in the Credo, if it be not an holy day?"