“Why, maid! Where hast dwelt all thy life? ‘Purfiled’ signifieth guarded with peltry.”
“But under your good allowance, Mistress Alvena, what is ‘peltry’?”
“By my Lady Saint Mary! heard one ever the like?”
“Peltry,” quietly explained Sybil, “is the skin of beast with the dressed fur thereon—such like as minever, and gris (marten), and the like.”
“Thurstan,” said Alvena suddenly, turning to a little errand boy (a fictitious person) who sat on a stool in the window, and whose especial business it was to do the bidding of the Countess’s waiting-women, “Hie thee down to Adam (a fictitious person) the peltier (furrier. Ladies of high rank kept a private furrier in the household), and do him to wit that the Lady would have four ells of peltry of beasts ermines for the bordure of her gown of blue satin that is in making. The peltry shall be of the breadth of thine hand, and no lesser; and say unto him that it shall be of the best sort, and none other. An’ he send me up such evil gear as he did of gris for the cloak of velvet, he may look to see it back with a fardel (parcel) of flyting lapped (wrapped) therein. Haste, lad! and be back ere my scissors meet.”
Thurstan disappeared, and Alvena threw herself down on the settle while she waited for her messenger.
“Ay me! I am sore aweary of all this gear—snipping, and sewing, and fitting. If I would not as lief as forty shillings have done with broidery and peltry, then the moon is made of green cheese. Is that strange unto thee, child?”
“Verily, Mistress Alvena, methinks you be aweary of Fairy Land,” said little Maude in surprise.
“Callest this Fairy Land?” laughed Alvena. “If so be, child, I were fain to dwell a season on middle earth.”
“In good sooth, so count I it,” answered Maude, allowing her eyes to rove delightedly among all the marvels of the ante-chamber, “and the Lady Custance the very Queen of Faery.”