“Remember, pray you, that you be a Prince’s daughter!” (See Note 1.)
The child rose with some reluctance, and climbed into the enormous chair, in which she seemed almost lost.
“Prithee, Dame Agnes, is it because I be a Prince’s daughter that I must needs be let from sitting whither I would?”
“There is meetness in all things,” said the old lady, picking up her distaff.
“And what meetness is in setting the like of me in a chair that would well hold Charlemagne and his twelve Peers?” demanded the little girl, laughing.
“The twelve Peers of Charlemagne, such saved as were Princes, were not the like of you, Lady Custance,” said Dame Agnes, almost severely.
“Ah me!” and Constance gaped (or, as she would herself have said, “goxide.”) “I would I were a woodman’s daughter.”
Dame Agnes de La Marche, (see Note 2), whose whole existence had been spent in the scented atmosphere of Court life, stared at the child in voiceless amazement.
“I would so, Dame. I might sit then of the rushes, let be the stools, or in a fieldy nook amid the wild flowers. And Doña Juana would not be ever laying siege to me—with ‘Doña Constança, you will soil your robes!’—or, ‘Doña Constança, you will rend your lace!’—or, ‘Doña Constança, you will dirty your fingers!’ Where is the good of being rich and well-born, if I must needs sit under a cloth of estate (a canopy) all the days of my life, and dare not so much as to lift a pin from the floor, lest I dirty my puissant and royal fingers? I would liefer have a blacksmith to my grandsire than a King.”
“Lady Custance! With which of her Grace’s scullion maidens have you demeaned yourself to talk?”