They were ushered into the private chamber of the goldsmith’s daughter, who sat at work, and rose to receive them. She kissed them all, for kissing was then the ordinary form of greeting, and people only shook hands when they wished to be warmly demonstrative.
“Is the gentlewoman here, Mistress Regina?”
“Sit you down,” said Mistress Regina, calmly. “No, she is not yet come. She will not long be. Which of you three is de maiden dat go shall?”
“That my cousin is,” said Alexandra, making fun of the German girl’s somewhat broken English, though in truth she spoke it fairly for a foreigner. But Amphillis said gently—
“That am I, Mistress Regina; and I take it full kindly of you, that you should suffer me to meet this gentlewoman in your chamber.”
“So!” was the answer. “You shall better serve of de three.”
Alexandra had no time to deliver the rather pert reply which she was preparing, for the door opened, and the young man announced “Mistress Chaucer.”
Had the girls known that the lady who entered was the wife of a man before whose fame that of many a crowned monarch would pale, and whose poetry should live upon men’s lips when five hundred years had fled, they would probably have looked on her with very different eyes. But they knew her only as a Lady of the Bedchamber, first to the deceased Queen Philippa, and now to the Queen of Castile, and therefore deserving of all possible subservience. Of her husband they never thought at all. The “chiel amang ’em takin’ notes” made no impression on them: but five centuries have passed since then, and the chiel’s notes are sterling yet in England.
Mistress Chaucer sat down on the bench, and with quiet but rapid glances appraised the three girls. Then she said to Amphillis—
“Is it thou whom I came to see?”