“But dost thou mean that, Jack?”
“I mean not to make a nief (serf) of my wife,” saith he. I was something comforted to hear that.
“As for time, dear heart,” he pursueth, “take thou an hour or twain by the day, so thou weary not thyself; and for events, I counsel thee to make a diverse form of chronicle from any ever yet written.”
“How so, Jack?”
“Set down nothing because it should go in a chronicle, but only those matters wherein thyself was interested.”
“But that, Jack,” said I, laughing as I looked up on him, “shall be the ‘Annals of Cicely’ over again; wherewith I thought thou wert not compatient.” (Pleased, satisfied; the adjective of compassion.)
“Nay, the Annals of Cicely were Cicely’s fancies and feelings,” he made answer: “this should be what Cicely heard and saw.”
I sat and meditated thereon.
“And afore thou wear thy fingers to the bone with thy much scribing,” saith he, with that manner of smile of his eyes which Jack hath, “call thou Father Philip to write at thy mouth, good wife.”
“Nay, verily!” quoth I. “I would be loth to call off Father Philip from his godly meditations, though I cast no doubt he were both fairer scribe and better chronicler than I.”