“Ha, chétife! will he come here?” said Dame Hilda: and we saw that it was bad news in her eyes.
“Forsooth, nay!” replied Tamzine. “There be hues and cries all over for him, but man saith he is fled beyond seas.”
“Amen!” ejaculated Dame Hilda. “He may win to Cathay (China) by my good will; and if he turn not again till mine hair be white, then will I give my patron saint a measure in wax. But what saith my Lady?”
“Her I saw not,” answered Tamzine; “but Mistress Robergia, who told me, said she went white and red both at once, and her breast heaved as though her very heart should come forth.”
“Gramercy!” said Dame Hilda. “How some folks do set their best pearls in copper!”
“Eh, our Lady love us!” responded Tamzine. “That’s been ever sith world began to run, Dame, I can tell you.”
“I lack no telling, lass,” was Dame Hilda’s answer. “Never was there finer pearl set in poorer ore than that thou and I wot of.”
I remember that bit of talk because I puzzled myself sorely as to what Dame Hilda could mean. Kate was puzzled, too, for she said to Isabel—
“What means the Dame? I never saw my Lady wear a pearl set in copper.”
“Oh, let be!” said Isabel. “’Tis but one of the Dame’s strange sayings. She is full of fantasies.”