Amphillis followed Perrote into the Countess’s room.
They found her standing by the window, as she often was at night, for the sunset and the evening lights had a great attraction for her. She turned her head as they entered.
“At last, Perrote!” she said. “In good sooth, but I began to think thou hadst forgot me, like everybody else in earth and heaven.”
“My Lady knows I shall never do that,” was the quiet reply. “Dame, my Lady Foljambe entreats of your Ladyship leave that Amphillis here shall lie in your pallet until she return.”
“Doth she so?” answered the Countess, with a curt laugh. “My Lady Foljambe is vastly pleasant, trow. Asking her caged bird’s leave to set another bird in the cage! Well, little brown nightingale, what sayest? Art feared lest the old eagle bite, or canst trust the hooked beak for a week or twain?”
“Dame, an’ it please you, I am in no wise feared of your Grace.”
“Well said. Not that thou shouldst make much difference. Had I a mind to fight for the door or the window, I could soon be quit of such a white-faced chit as thou. Ah me! to what end? That time is by, for me. Well! so they went off in grand array? I saw them. If Godfrey Foljambe buy his wife a new quirle, and his daughter-in-law a new gown, every time they cry for it, he shall be at the end of his purse ere my cushion yonder be finished broidering. Lack-a-day! I would one of you would make an end thereof. I am aweary of the whole thing. Green and tawny and red—red and tawny and green; tent-stitch down here, and satin-stitch up yonder. And what good when done? There’s a cushion-cover more in the world; that is all. Would God—ah, would God, from the bottom of mine heart, that there were but one weary woman less!”
“My dear Lady!” said Perrote, sympathisingly.
“Ay, old woman, I know. Thou wouldst fain ask, Whither should I go? I know little, verily, and care less. Only let me lie down and sleep for ever, and forget everything—I ask but so much. I think God might let me have that. One has to wake ever, here, to another dreary day. If man might but sleep and not wake! or—ah, if man could blot out thirty years, and I sit once more in my mail on my Feraunt at the gate of Hennebon! Dreams, dreams, all empty dreams! Come, child, and lay by this wimple. ’Tis man’s duty to hie him abed now. Let’s do our duty. ’Tis all man has left to me—leave to do as I am bidden. What was that bruit I heard without, an half-hour gone?”
Amphillis, in answer, for Perrote was unable to speak, told the story of Agatha’s mischievous trick. The Countess laughed.