"Do you mean," she cried, following through the barnyard, "that you spend all the seasons on this Farm? It is not possible!" "And why is it not possible?" the Dame asked, looking at her for the first time a little sternly, and she saw that in spite of her smooth country skin she was a woman of middle age; "the seasons are all full. In the spring there is planting, in the summer there is picking, in the autumn there is storing, in the winter there is spinning." Now these were simple words and plain to understand, and yet something about them troubled her greatly and she felt[Pg 68] that she must find an answer for them or know no peace at all. [Pg 68] "That is all very well," she said quickly, "but you are leaving out something without which all the seasons are empty and the year a dull affair." "And what is that, then?" asked the Dame. "Pleasure," she said. "I find pleasure in them all," the Dame said, "and so do those about me." "But they are all work—they are things that must be done!" she cried, tugging at the Dame's sleeve as she crossed the kitchen threshold; "true pleasure is a thing apart—we must have both, surely." The Dame blew a little silver whistle hanging among her keys and at once there was a bustle and a running and some dozen maids came hurrying from all parts of the rambling farm-house to hear her orders. But before she busied herself with these she spoke to her guest. [Pg 69]"My dear," she said, "if you come to my time of life and have not found your pleasure in your work, you will never find it in this world. Sit down and think of this." [Pg 69] She sat down upon a carven chest by the open window, where the asters sent out a spicy odour and the hum of bees was not too far distant, and dropped her chin into the cup of her hands and thought. Meantime, the Dame laid out for each girl her task, not hurried nor yet slow, but so that each was started fairly. "You, Lotte, order the
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