And there are the doves above the long barn."

She looked and saw that all these things were so, but great weariness filled her and she could think of nothing but the long way back, for she knew that they had come a great way from the city.

"This may all be well for you, child, but it is not the same to me," she said sadly.

"And why not, madam? The Dame is kind to all," the little maid replied, and urged the donkey on.

"What is your name?" she asked, looking for the first time at her guide in the full light of early day. The girl was quaintly dressed, she saw, with a black[Pg 56] bodice laced across her young body, a shorter skirt than grown girls wear now, and a scarlet ribbon twisted among the long, dark braids that hung down her shoulders. She had travelled much in older countries than her own and to her eyes this girl had the air of a winsome little peasant that knew her simple station and was happy in it.

[Pg 56]

"Joan is my name, madam—and I have been told that the miller's Dyrk has called the new brown foal for me—the finest one at the Farm!" she said with a bubble of laughter.

"Now, madam, we are here at last. Let me help you down, and we will surprise the Dame for once, for not often does one catch her asleep. She will be the first always—and here she is!"

They were in the very dooryard of a thriving, deep-eaved farm-house. Asters glistened with dew about the doorstep, a straw-filled kennel for the great hound stood close by, the cocks welcomed in the[Pg 57] day from behind a trim green hedge, and slowly across the back-stretching meadow came home a file of sleek, heavy-uddered cattle. She stared at them unseeing, for her head reeled, but Joan mistook her staring and began to prattle:

[Pg 57]

"You are surprised, no doubt, madam, to see the cows come in from the pasture this early, but here at the Farm the air is so dry and pure that they leave them in the fields all night, and the milk tastes of honey and meadow grass, the miller's Dyrk does say——"

"Child, child, will you never be done with your chatter? The stranger is sick—too sick, I see, to mind herself of the Farm's cows. Help me to take her in!"

"You must be the Dame," she said, and tried to look steadily at the woman who came out of the oaken door to lead her in. She was a 

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