“And a right tempting breakfast, too!” declared Gardiner, seizing the pewter beer-mug and half emptying it at a draught. “Ha! ’tis good! A right honest strike of malt!” added he, carefully wiping his long mustachios and smiling upon Betty, who stood solemnly regarding him. “And a posy, too! A posy that looks marvelously like thyself, child, so sweet and tender, yet blossoming from out austere and rigid foliage. What is thy name, little one?”
“Elizabeth Alden, sir; but I’m mostly called Betty.”
“Ay, then, this flower is the Bettina, or the Betty-belle, or the Bettissimo, is it not?”
“Nay, sir; we call it mayflower, because father says it minds him of the English may that blooms in the hedges where he was born. But the doctor, who is wondrous wise about herbs, will still give it some hard name I cannot remember. He knows botany, the doctor does.”
“Ay, does he? Well, I would he knew a way to make me a well man and a free one.” And the knight, hastily pushing aside his half-eaten breakfast, began to pace up and down the room in restless anger and impatience. Betty, halfway to the door, stopped and regarded him pitifully, then timidly said,—
“I would I could help you, sir. Shall I bring my kitten to see you? or mayhap you’d like Shakem better?”
“And what is Shakem, thou pretty child?”
“He’s father’s little dog that catches rats and shakes them so merrily, and he knows tricks, too: he’ll stand up and beg, and he’ll catch the bits on his nose, and he’ll play at being dead”—
“Nay, then, Betty, he’s not for me! I need no mimic deaths to mind me of mine own. Ohé!”
“Is that the ‘worse’ that mother meant? Oh, I’m so sorry, sir!”