lapping; great stones roughly mortared together made the floor on either side of it; the Dame stood high on wooden clogs and hummed a ballad wherein the birds sang in the morning, but at night the eggs were broken, and the wind was high and scattered the fledglings.

The Dame stood high on wooden clogs and hummed a ballad.

[Pg 63]

[Pg 63]

Even the freshness of her late rest in her heart, her eyes filled at the Dame's song, and often afterward she thought of it when the wind was rising.

"And did you rest well?" said the Dame to her when the song was done.

"Never so well since I was a child," she said. "I have come to thank you for all your care, and to ask you when you can send me home, for I have no idea where I am, and I am sure I have come a long way."

"A long way, indeed!" said the Dame, and looked at her strangely, but when she questioned her this busy Dame only smiled, and told her that it was good to hear of her freshening sleep but no surprise, since all made the same report of the Farm.

"It seems the air here is so pure that a few hours of it do more for the body than days of other parts of the countryside,"[Pg 64] she said, and when her visitor asked again, "But where am I?" she only answered:

[Pg 64]

"But are you not ready for your breakfast, then?"

"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,[Pg 65] "but I know that I have much 

 Prev. P 27/54 next