In those days a farmer's wife would rise, and have all her maids stirring by three o'clock at latest in summer-time, and her day ended by seven or eight. The whole family dined together between eight and nine, and master and mistress worked as hard as any one. Now some of our farmers' dames must ape their betters by putting off their dinners till ten o'clock, and cannot, forsooth, soil their fingers with the dung-fork. I don't know what the world is coming to for my part.
Dame Green gave us the warmest welcome, and at once set her daughters and maids to covering the table with bread and butter, cream, ginger and saffron bread, and a great cold pie like a fortification, with all sorts of country dainties. We young ones did ample justice to all the good things, but I saw that my aunt ate but little, and seemed sad and distraught.
"You have some one with you?" said my aunt, as a somewhat high-pitched voice, with a strong London accent, made itself heard without.
"Yes, my brother-in-law's widow, and I wish she were any where else!" said Dame Green, with a face of disgust. "Poor Thomas Green died bankrupt, and Mistress Jane hath no refuge but her brother's house."
"And a very good refuge too!" said my aunt. "'Tis well for her that she hath such a home open to her."
"She does not think so, madam. To hear her talk, one would think she was in banishment among the savages. I wish she were any where else than here, turning the girls' heads with her talk about tourneys and court fashions—much she ever saw of them! But here she comes to answer for herself."
As she spoke, a woman entered the room dressed in widow's mourning. She must once have been pretty, in a coarse, bouncing fashion, and she wore her weeds with a kind of jaunty air. Dame Green presented her to my aunt.
"Dear me, Mistress Holland, who would have expected to see you in the country to-day, of all days in the year!" cried the lady in a shrill, affected voice. "I should have thought you would have staid and taken the young ladies to see the spectacle. I have been fuming all the morning at being shut up in this wild place."
We children looked at each other, wondering what great sight we had missed.
My aunt replied gravely: