"Indeed I am," said she, "but I fear I have come away from it, to find you."
"Nay," said the Dame, "you have brought it with you," and pointed to the basket. She opened it and spread the wheaten rolls, the jar of honey, the brown, new-laid egg and the clean, homespun napkin upon the Dame's table and ate with wonderful relish, supplying herself with sweet butter and yellow milk from the stores about her, and while she ate and the Dame worked, they talked.
"You must be very busy, Dame, to be up with the dawn," she said.
"Why, that is so," said the Dame, "but women must needs be busy, as you know well, I have no doubt."
She sighed and twisted her idle hands.
"I do not know that I can truly say I am always busy," she said thoughtfully, "but I know that I have much to do—so much that I cannot do it," and again she sighed.
"Why, that is odd," said the Dame, patting her butter; "I have so much to do that I must do it."
She knit her brows and tried to think of an answer, but the answers that came to her mind had a foolish sound as she tried them over, so she said nothing.
"The Farm lets no one rest," the Dame went on, "and you must know that everything you brought with you this morning, the willow basket, the napkin, the egg, the wheaten flour, the honey, all were made here, and that means much work for many hands."
Now this put her in mind of something she had thought of before.