“Well! then set aside the blue,” said Lady Foljambe, with a slight pout. “Margaret, what lackest thou?”
Mrs Margaret looked wistfully at the fourteen-shilling crimson, and then manfully chose the six-and-eightpenny green.
“Now let us see thy samitelles,” said her Ladyship.
Samitelle, as its name implies, was doubtless a commoner quality of the rich and precious samite, which ranked in costliness and beauty with baldekin and cloth of gold, and above satin and velvet. Samite was a silk material, of which no more is known than that it was very expensive, and had a glossy sheen, like satin. Some antiquaries have supposed it to be an old name for satin; but as several Wardrobe Rolls contain entries relating to both in immediate sequence, this supposition is untenable.
The mercer exhibited three pieces of samitelle.
“Perse, Dame, four marks the piece,” said he, holding up a very pale blue; “ash-colour, thirty shillings; apple-bloom, forty shillings.”
“No,” said Lady Foljambe; “I would have white.”
“Forty-five shillings the piece, Dame.”
“Hast no cheaper?”