listen.”

“I misdoubt if thou art right, Milly, to say that a man hath the more of his own way always,” saith Mother. “Methinks there be many women get much of that.”

“Then a man is not tied down to one corner. He can go and see the world,” saith Milly.

“In short,” quoth Aunt Joyce, “the moral of thy words, Milly, is—‘Untie me.’”

“I wish I were so!” mutters Milly.

“And what should happen next?” saith Aunt Joyce.

“Why, I reckon I could not do much without money,” answereth Milly.

“Oh, grant all that,” quoth Aunt Joyce,—“money, and leave, and all needed, and Mistress Milisent setting forth to do according to her will. What then?”

“Well, I would first go up to London,” saith she, “and cut some figure in the Court.”

Aunt Joyce gave a dry little laugh.

“There be figures of more shapes than one, Milly,” saith she. “Howbeit—what next?”

“Why, then, methinks, I would go to the wars.”

“And bring back as many heads, arms, and legs, as thou tookest thither?”

“Oh, for sure,” saith Milly. “I would not be killed.”

“Just. Very well,—Mistress Milisent back from the wars, and covered with glory. And then?”

“Well—methinks I would love to be a judge for a bit.”

“Dry work,” saith Aunt Joyce. “And then a bishop?”

“Ay, if you will.”

“And then?”

“Why, I might as well be a king, while I went about it.”

“Quite as well. I am astonished thou hast come thither no sooner. And then?”

“Well,—I know not what then. You drive one on, Aunt Joyce. Methinks, then, I would come home and see you all, and recount mine aventures.”

“Oh, mightily obliged to your Highness!” quoth Aunt Joyce. “I had thought, when your Majesty were thus up at top of the tree, you should forget utterly so mean a place as Selwick Hall, and the contemptible things that inhabit there. And then?”

“Come, I will make an end,” saith Milly, laughing. “I reckon I should be a bit wearied by then, and fain to bide at home and take mine ease.”

“And pray, what hindereth that your Grace should do that now?” saith Aunt Joyce, looking up with a comical face.

“Well, but I am not aweary, and have no aventures to tell,” Milly makes answer.

“Go into the garden and jump five hundred times, Milly, and I will warrant thee to be aweary and thankful for rest. And as to aventures,—eh, my maid, my maid!” And Aunt Joyce and Mother smiled one upon the other.

“Now, Mother and Aunt, may I say what I think?” cries Milly.

“Prithee, so do, my maid.”

“Then, why do you folks that be no longer young, ever damp and chill young folks that would fain see the world and have some jollity?”

“By reason, Milly, that we have been through the world, and we know it to be a damp place and a cold.”

“But all folks do not find it so?”

“God have mercy on them that do not!”

“Now, Aunt, what mean you?”

“Dear heart, the brighter the colour of the poisoned sweetmeat, the more like is the babe to put in his mouth.”

“Your parable is above me, Aunt Joyce.”

“Milly, a maiden must give her heart to something. The Lord’s word unto us all is, Give Me thine heart. But most of us will try every thing else first. And every thing else doth chill and disappoint us. Yet thou never sawest man nor Woman that had given the heart to God, which could ever say with truth that disappointment had come of it.”

“I reckon they should be unready to confess the same,” saith she.

“They be ready enough to confess it of other things,” quoth Aunt Joyce. “But few folks will learn by the blunders of any but their own selves. I would thou didst.”

“By whose blunders would you have me learn, Aunt?” saith Milly in her saucy fashion that is yet so bright and coaxing that she rarely gets flitten (scolded) for the same.

“By those of whomsoever thou seest to blunder,” quoth she.

“That must needs be thee, Edith,” saith Milly in a demure voice. “For it standeth with reason, as thou very well wist, that I shall never see mine elders to make no blunders of no sort whatever.”

“Thou art a saucy baggage, Milly,” quoth Aunt Joyce. “That shall cost thee six pence an’ it go down in the chronicle.”

“Oh, ’tis not yet my turn for to write, Aunt. And I am well assured Nell shall pay no sixpences.”

“Fewer than thou, I dare guess,” saith Aunt Joyce. “Who has been to visit old Jack Benn this week?”

“Not I, Aunt,” quoth Edith, somewhat wearily, as if she feared Aunt Joyce should bid her go.

“Oh, I’ll go and see him!” cries Milly. “There is nought one half so diverting in all the vale as old Jack. Aunt, be all Brownists as queer as he?”

“Nay, I reckon Jack hath some queer notions of his own, apart from his Brownery,” quoth she. “But, Milly,—be diverted as much as thou wilt, but let not the old man see that thou art a-laughing at him.”

“All right, Aunt!” saith Milly, cheerily. “Come, Nell. Edith shall bide at home, that can I see.”

So Milly and I set forth to visit old Jack, and Mother gave us a bottle of cordial water, and a little basket of fresh eggs, for to take withal.

He dwells all alone, doth old Jack, in a mud cot part-way up the mountain, that he did build himself, ere the aches in his bones ’gan trouble him, that he might scantly work. He is one of those queer folk that call themselves Brownists, and would fain have some better religion than they may find at church. Jack is nigh alway reading of his Bible, but never no man could so much as guess the strange meanings he brings forth of the words. I reckon, as Aunt Joyce saith, there is more Jack than Brownist in them.

We found Jack sitting in the porch, his great Bible on his knees. He looked up when he heard our voices.

“Get out!” saith he. “I never want no women folk.”

’Tis not oft we have fairer greeting of Jack.

“Nay, truly, Jack,” saith Milly right demurely. “They be a rare bad handful,—nigh as ill as men folk. What thou lackest is eggs and cordial water, the which women can carry as well as jackasses.”

She held forth her basket as she spake.

“Humph!” grunts old Jack. “I’d liever have the jackasses.”

“I am assured thou wouldst,” quoth Milly. “Each loveth best his own kind.”

Old Jack was fingering of the eggs.

“They be all hens’ eggs!”

“So they be,” saith Milly. “I dare guess, thou shouldst have loved goose eggs better.”

“Ducks’,” answereth old Jack.

“The ducks be gone a-swimming,” saith she.

I now drew forth my bottle of cordial water, the which the old man took off me with never a thank you, and after smelling thereto, set of the ground at his side.

“What art reading, Jack?” saith Milly.

“What Paul’s got to say again’ th’ law,” quoth he. “’Tis a rare ill thing th’ law, Mistress Milisent. And so be magistrates, and catchpolls (constables) and all the lawyer folk. Rascals, Mistress Milisent,—all rascals, every man Jack of ’em. Do but read Paul, and you shall see so much.”

“Saith the Apostle so?” quoth Milly, and gave me a look which nigh o’erset me.

“He saith ‘the law is