“None save a blind bat should have asked that,” saith Aunt Joyce. “But thou hast worn blinkers, Dulcie, ever sith I knew thee. Eh, lack-a-daisy! but that is fifty year gone, or not far thence.”
“Three lacking,” quoth my Lady Stafford.
“I’ll tell you what, we be growing old women!” saith Aunt Joyce. “Ned and Edith, ye ungracious loons, what do ye a-laughing?”
“I cry you mercy, Aunt, I could not help it,” said I, when I might speak: “you said it as though you had discovered the same but that instant minute.”
“Well, I had,” saith she. “And so shall you, afore you come to sixty years: or if not, woe betide you.”
“Dear heart, Aunt, there is a long road betwixt sixteen and sixty!” cried I, yet laughing.
“There is, Edith,” right grave, Aunt Joyce makes answer. “A long stretch of road: and may-be steep hills, child, and heavy moss, and swollen rivers to ford, and snowstorms to breast on the wild moors. Ah, how little ye young things know! I reckon most folk should count my life an easy one, beside other: but I would not live it again, an’ I might choose. Wouldst thou, Dulcie?”
“Oh dear, no!” cries my Lady Stafford.
“And thou, Grissel?”
Mistress Martin shook her head.