It was on Kate that her glance fell, being the next eldest after Isabel; and Kate answered readily—
“We will all be good as gold, Dame.”
“Nym, and Hodge, and Geoffrey,” she went on, “go also with me; so thou, Kate, wilt be eldest left here, and I look to thee to set a good ensample to thy brethren,—especially my little wilful Jack.”
Jack’s snoring had stopped when she came in, and now, as she went over and sat her down by the bed wherein Jack lay of the outside, up came Jack’s head from under the blue velvet coverlet. Our mother laid her hand tenderly upon it.
“My dear little Jack!” she said; “my poor little Jack!”
“Dame, I’m not poor, an’t like you!” made answer Jack, in a tone of considerable astonishment. “I’ve got a whole ball of new string, and two battledores and a shuttlecock, and a ball, and a bow and arrows.”
“Yes, my little Jack,” she said, tenderly.
“There are lots of lads poorer than me!” quoth Jack. “Nym himself hasn’t got a whole ball of string, and Geoff hasn’t a bit. I asked him. Master Inge gave it me yesterday. I’m going to make reins with it for Annis and Maud, and lots of cats’ cradles.”
“You’re not going to make reins for me,” said Maud from our bed. “Dame, it is horrid playing horses with Jack. He wants you to take the string in your mouth, and you don’t know where he’s had it. I don’t mind having it tied to my arms, but I won’t have it in my mouth.”
“Did you ever see a horse with his reins tied to his arms?” scornfully demanded Jack. “You do as you are bid, my Lady Maud, or I’ll come and make you.”