She was small and slight for her twelve years, and preternaturally grave. A quantity of long dark hair hung round her head in a condition of seemingly hopeless tanglement, and the dark eyes, proportionately larger than the rest of the features, wore an expression of mingled apathy and suspicion, alike strange and painful to see in the eyes of a child.
“Come forward, Maude, and speak with Mistress Drew. Mercy on us, child! how hast moiled thine hair like a fowl his pennes!” (Feathers.)
Maude made no reply. She came a few steps nearer, dropped a rustic courtesy, and stood to be questioned.
“What is thy name?” inquired Mistress Ursula, as though she were beginning the catechism.
“Maude,” said the child under her breath.
“And what years hast—twelve?”
“Twelve, the last Saint Margaret.”
“And where wert born? Dost know?”
Maude knew, though for some reason with which she herself was best acquainted, she had been much more chary of her information to my Lady the Prioress than she now chose to be.
“At Pleshy, in Essex.”