Ay, many a want, as Maude well knew, but what had Credo or Angelus to do with wants? Prayer, in her eyes, meant either long repetitions imposed as penances by the priest, or else the daily use of a charm, the omission of which might entail evil consequences. Of prayer as a real means of procuring something about which she cared, she had no more notion than Dame Agnes’s squirrel, at that moment running round his cage, had of the distance and extent of Sherwood Forest. Maude looked up in the face of her mistress with an expression of deep perplexity.
“Child,” said the Countess, “when Dame Joan would send word touching some matter unto Dame Agnes here, falleth she a-saying unto herself of Dan Chaucer’s brave Romaunt of The Flower and the Leaf?”
“Surely, no, Madam.”
“Then what doth she?”
“She cometh unto her,” said Maude, immediately adding, in a matter-of-fact way, “without she should send Mistress Sybil or some other.”
“Good. Then arede (inform) me wherefore thou shouldst fall a-saying the Credo when thou wouldst send word of thy need unto God, any more than Dame Joan should fall a-saying the Romaunt?”
“But God heareth us, and conceiveth us, Madam,” said Maude timidly, “and Dame Agnes no doth.”
“Truth, my maid. Therein faileth my parable. But setting this aside, tell me,—how shall the Credo give to wit thy need?”
Maude cogitated for a minute in silence. Then she answered—
“No shall it, Madam.”