"'Heyday,' says she, 'thy shafts fly high this morn.' I told her, 'Ay, for they hit the Truth.'
"She said I was as keen as keen; but it became not me to put riddles to her, nor her to answer them. 'Stand aloof a bit, mesdames,' said she, 'and thou speak without fear'; for she saw I was in sad earnest.
"I began to quake a bit; for mind ye, she can doff freedom and don dignity quicker than she can slip out of her dressing-gown into kirtle of state. But I made my voice so soft as honey; (wherefore smilest?) and I said, 'Madam, one evening, a matter of five years agone, as ye sat with your mother, the Countess of Charolois, who is now in heaven, worse luck, you wi' your lute, and she wi' her tapestry, or the like; do ye mind there came in to ye a fair youth—with a letter from a painter body, one Margaret Van Eyck?'
"She said she thought she did. 'Was it not a tall youth, exceedingly comely?'
"'Ay, madam,' said I; 'he was my brother.'
"'Your brother?' said she, and did eye me like all over. (What dost smile at?)
"So I told her all that passed between her and Gerard, and how she was for giving him a bishopric; but the good countess said, 'Gently, Marie! He is too young;' and with that they did both promise him a living; 'Yet,' said I, 'he hath been a priest a long while, and no living. Hence my bile.'
"'Alas!' said she, ''tis not by my good will. For all this thou hast said is sooth; and more, I do remember, my dear mother said to me, "See thou to it if I be not here."' So then she cried out 'Ay, dear mother, no word of thine shall ever fall to the ground.'
"I seeing her so ripe, said quickly, 'Madam, the Vicar of Gouda died last week.' (For when ye seek favours of the great, behoves ye know the very thing ye aim at.)
"'Then thy brother is vicar of Gouda,' quo' she, 'so sure as I am heiress of Burgundy and the Netherlands. Nay, thank me not, good Giles,' quo' she; 'but my good mother. And I do thank thee for giving of me somewhat to do for her memory.' And doesn't she fall a weeping for her mother? and doesn't that set me off a snivelling for my good brother that I love so dear, and to think that a poor little elf like me could yet speak in the ear of princes, and make my beautiful brother vicar of Gouda; eh, lass, it is a bonny place, and a bonny manse, and hawthorn in every bush at spring-tide, and dog-roses and eglantine in every summer hedge. I know what the poor fool affects, leave that to me."