"I hope not," replied the other young lady; "for by no contrivance can they ever make books so cheap, that the lower class can read them; and I know I have often wished I had a book to read when I have had nothing else to do. It's a great comfort sometimes, my dear aunt, especially when one is heavy." "Ay, that it is, child," said the abbess; "I know that right well. I don't know what I should have done after the battle of Barnet, if it had not been for poor old Chaucer. My grandfather remembered him very well, at the court of John of Ghent; and he gave me the merry book, when I was not much older than you are. Well-a-day, I must read it again, when you two leave me; for my evenings will be dull enough without you, children. I would ask sister Bridget to come in of a night, in the winter, and do her embroidery beside me, only if she staid for my little private supper, her face would certainly turn the wine sour." "But, perhaps we shall not go after all, dear mother," said the younger lady. "Have you heard anything about it?" "There now," cried the abbess, laughing, "she's just as wild to get into the wicked world as a caged bird to break out into the open air." "To be sure I am," exclaimed the light-hearted girl; "and oh, how I will use my wings." The abbess gazed at her with a look of tender, almost melancholy, interest, and replied: "There are limed twigs about them, my child. You forget that you are married." "No, not married," cried the other, with her face all glowing. "Contracted, not married--I wish I was, for the thought frightens me, and then the worst would be over." "You don't know what you wish," replied the abbess, shaking her head. "A thousand to one, you would very soon wish to be unmarried again; but then it would be too late. It is a collar you can't shake off when you have once put it on; and nobody can tell how much it may pinch one till it has been tried. I thank my lucky stars that made it convenient for your good grandfather to put me in here; for whenever I go out quietly on my little mule, to see after the affairs of the farms, and perchance to take a sidelong look at our good foresters coursing a hare, I never can help pitying the two dogs coupled together, and pulling at the two ends of a band they cannot break, and thanking my good fortune for not tying me up in a leash with any one." The two girls laughed gaily; for, to say truth, they had neither of them any vocation for cloisteral life; but the youngest replied, following her aunt's figure of speech, "I dare say the dogs are very like two married people, my aunt and lady mother; but I dare say too, if you were to ask either of them, whether he would rather go out into the green fields tied to a companion, or remain shut up in a kennel, he would hold out his neck for the couples."