“And if so were, Mistress, counteth your Madamship that our said puissant Lady should ever lack her pans cleansed yonder?”
“Wherefore, little maid?” asked the lady very gently.
“Because, an’ I so might, I would fain dwell in yonder city,” said Maude, with glittering eyes.
“And thy work is to cleanse pans?”
Little Maude sighed heavily. “Ay, yonder is my work.”
“Which thou little lovest, as methinks.”
“Should you love it, Mistress, think you?” demanded Maude.
“Truly, little maid, that should I not,” answered the lady. “Now tell me freely, what wouldst liefer do?”
“Aught that were clean and fair and honest!” (pretty) said Maude confidentially, her eyes kindling again. “An’ they lack any ’prentices in that City, I would fain be bound yonder. Verily, I would love to twine flowers, or to weave dovecotes (the golden nets which confined ladies’ hair), or to guard brave gowns with lace, and the like of that, an’ I could be learned. Save that, methinks, over there, I would be ever and alway a-gazing from the lattice.”
“Wherefore?”