A sudden incursion of so many persons into an unprepared house was less annoying in the fourteenth century than it would be in the nineteenth. There was then always superfluous provision for guests who might suddenly arrive; a castle was invariably victualled in advance of the consumption expected; and as to sleeping accommodation, a sack filled with chaff and a couple of blankets was all that any person anticipated who was not of "high degree." Maude slept the first night in a long gallery, with ten other women; for the future she would occupy the pallet in her lady's chamber. Bertram was provided for along with the other squires, in the banquet-hall, the chaff beds and blankets being carried out of the way in the morning; and as to draughts, our forefathers were never out of one inside their houses, and therefore did not trouble themselves on that score. The washing arrangements, likewise, were of the most primitive description. Princes and the higher class of peers washed in silver basins in their own rooms; but a squire or a knight's daughter would have been thought unwarrantably fastidious who was not fully satisfied with a tub and a towel. A comb was the only instrument used for dressing the hair, except where crisping-pins were required; and mirrors were always fixtures against the wall. A long time elapsed before Maude felt at home at Cardiff; and she could not avoid seeing that a still longer period passed before Constance did so. The latter was restless and unsettled. She had escaped from the rule of her step-mother to that of her mother-in-law, and she disliked the one only a little less than the other; though "Daughter" fell very differently on the ear from the lips of a child of ten, and from those of a woman who was approaching sixty. But the worst point of Constance's new life was her utter indifference to her husband. She looked upon his gentle deference to her wishes as want of spirit, and upon his quiet, reserved, undemonstrative manner as want of brains. From loving him she was as far as she had been in those old days when she had so cruelly told his sister Margaret that "when she loved Tom, she would let him know." That he loved her, and that very dearly, was patent to the most superficial observer. Maude, who was not very observant of others, used to notice how his eyes followed her wherever she went, brightened at the sound of her step, and kindled eagerly when she spoke. The Dowager saw it too, with considerable disapproval; and thought it desirable to turn her observations to profit by a grave admonition to her son upon the sin and folly of idolatry. She meant rightly enough, yet it sounded harsh and cruel, when she bluntly reminded him that Constance manifestly cared nothing for him. Le Despenser's lip quivered with pain. "Let be, fair Mother," he said gently. "It may be yet, one day, that my Lady's heart shall come home to God and me, and that she shall then say unto me, `I love thee.'"