IT was May three years since Joan had smelled the apple tree in blossom by the well, or had marked the heartsease amid the grass. She drew her bucket of water, flashing, dripping, and cold, rested it upon the well-stone, and regarded with grey eyes the cottage and its handbreadth of garden. She sighed. There had been much of advantage in that long sojourn with her uncle the huntsman, in his better house than this, a mile in the castle wood, above the town so much greater than Hawthorn Village! There had been the town to walk to, the bright things to see, the bustle in the streets, the music in the church, the occasional processions and pageants, the fairs and feast days. For the castle itself, the great family was not often there, but the housekeeper had been friendly to her, and she had been let to roam as she pleased through the place, half-mediæval stronghold, half new walls and chambers echoing Tudor luxury. Four times in the three years the family had been in residence, and then there were other things to watch, though at a most respectful distance!... Once there had been a masque in the park, and, as many figures were needed, there had come an order from the countess. A page had brought it, and had explained in detail, what was wanted. There was to be a whole pageant of scenes from the mythology. She was to enact a virgin who had been very swift of foot—she was to run swiftly from north to south across the great pleasaunce—a young gentleman, who would be running likewise, would throw before her, one after the other, three yellow apples. She would stoop and pick them up while he ran on. She nodded. “Yes, I know. Atalanta.” The page, who was younger than herself but comely and court-bred, evinced surprise. “Wherever, Phyllis, didst get that learning?” She said that her father was clerkly and talked to her of things in books.... The masque! It was a world to remember, the masque! How beautiful all things had been, and everybody—and kind! But there had never been but the one masque, and soon the family had gone away.