“Please you, Mistress, there was nought but that in the coffer.”
“What coffer?”
“The walnut, in the porch-chamber.”
“Well, if ever I did! I never spake a word of the walnut coffer, nor the porch-chamber neither, I told thee the great oak coffer, and that’s in my chamber, as thou knows, as well as thou knows thy name’s Dorothy. Put that apron back where thou found it, and bring me the brown hood from the oak coffer. Dear heart, but she’ll go and cast her eyes about for an oak hood in a brown coffer, as like as not! She’s that heedless. It’s not for lack of wit; she could if she would.—Why, what’s to be done with yon little scraps! You can never get home to Thorpe such a night as this. Johnson! you leave these bits o’ children with me, and I’ll send them back to you to-morrow when the cart goes your way for a load of malt. There’s room enough for you; you’d all pack in a thimble, well-nigh.—Nay, now! hast thou really found it? Now then, Agnes Love, cast that over you, and hap it close to keep you warm. Pay! bless the woman, I want no pay! only some day I’d like to hear ‘Inasmuch’ said to me. Good even!”
“You’ll hear that, Mistress Wade!” said Agnes Love, a pale quiet-looking woman, with a warm grasp of Mistress Wade’s hand. “You’ll hear that, and something else, belike—as we’ve heard to-night, the King will come forth and serve you. Eh, but it warms one’s heart to hear tell of it!”
“Ay, it doth, dear heart, it doth! Good-night, and God bless thee! Now, Master Pulleyne, I’ll show you your chamber, an’ it like you. Rose Allen, you know the way to Dorothy’s loft? Well, go you up, and take the little ones with you. It’s time for babes like them to be abed. Doll will show you how to make up a bed for them. Art waiting for some one, Bessy?”
“No, Mistress Wade,” said Elizabeth Foulkes, who had stood quietly in a corner as though she were; “but if you’d kindly allow it, I’d fain go up too and have a chat with Rose. My mistress gave me leave for another hour yet.”
“Hie thee up, good maid, and so do,” replied Mrs Wade cheerily, taking up a candlestick to light Mr Pulleyne to the room prepared for him, where, as she knew from past experience, he was very likely to sit at study till far into the night.
Dorothy lighted another candle, and offered it to Rose.
“See, you’ll lack a light,” said she.