Joscelyn: What! are you not ashamed to offer us a broken gift? Your story is like a cracked pitcher with half the milk leaked out. What was the secret of the Lantern, the Cloak, and the Cherry-tree?
Joyce: Who was the lovely lady, his mother? and who the old crone?
Jennifer: What was the end of the Rough Master of Coates?
Jessica: Did not the lovers drown in the floods?
Jane: And if they did not, what became of them?
"Please," said little Joan, "tell us why Young Gerard dreamed those dreams. Oh, please tell us what happened."
"Women's taste is for trifles," said Martin. "I have offered you my cake, and you wish only to pick off the nuts and the cherries."
"No," said Joan, "we wish you to put them on. Do you not love nuts and cherries on a cake?"
"More than anything," said Martin.)
A long while ago, dear maidens, there were Lords in Gay Street, and up and down the Street the cherry-trees bloomed in Spring as they bloomed nowhere else in Sussex, and under the trees sang and danced the loveliest lads and lasses in all England, with hearts like children. And on all their holiday clothes they worked the leaf and branch and flower and fruit of the cherry. And they never wore anything else but their holiday clothes, because in Gay Street it was always holidays.