Nick wiped his swollen eyes dubiously upon his sleeve; yet the little maid seemed positive.  Perhaps, after all, there was a mistake somewhere.

“Art hungry, boy?” she asked suddenly, spying the empty trencher on the floor.  “There is a pasty and a cake in the buttery, and thou shalt have some of it if thou wilt not cry any more.  Come, I cannot bear to see thee cry—­it makes me weep myself; and that will blear mine eyes, and father will feel bad.”

“If he but felt as bad as he hath made me feel—­” began Nick, wrathfully; but she laid her little hand across his mouth.  It was a very white, soft, sweet little hand.

“Come,” said she; “thou art hungry, and it hath made thee cross!” and, with no more ado, took him by the hand and led him down the corridor into a large room where the last daylight shone with a smoky glow.

The walls were wainscoted with many panels, dark, old, and mysterious; and in a burnished copper brazier at the end of the room cinnamon, rosemary, and bay were burning with a pleasant smell.  Along the walls were joined-work chests for linen and napery, of brass-bound oak—­one a black, old, tragic sea-chest, carved with grim faces and weird griffins, that had been cast up by the North Sea from the wreck of a Spanish galleon of war.  The floor was waxed in the French fashion, and was so smooth that Nick could scarcely keep his feet.  The windows were high up in the wall, with their heads among the black roof-beams, which with their grotesquely carven brackets were half lost in the dusk.  Through the windows Nick could see nothing but a world of chimney-pots.

“Is London town all smoke-pipes?” he asked confusedly.

“Nay,” replied the little maid; “there are people.”

Pushing a chair up to the table, she bade him sit down.  Then pulling a tall, curiously-made stool to the other side of the board, she perched herself upon it like a fairy upon a blade of grass.  “Greg!” she called imperiously, “Greg!  What, how!  Gregory Goole, I say!”

“Yes, ma’m’selle,” replied a hoarse voice without; and through a door at the further end of the room came the bandy-legged man with the bow of crimson ribbon in his ear.

Nick turned a little pale; and when the fellow saw him sitting there, he came up hastily, with a look like a crock of sour milk.  “Tut, tut! ma’m’selle,” said he; “Master Carew will not like this.”

She turned upon him with an air of dainty scorn.  “Since when hath father left his wits to thee, Gregory Goole?  I know his likes as well as thou—­and it likes him not to let this poor boy starve, I’ll warrant.  Go, fetch the pasty and the cake that are in the buttery, with a glass of cordial,—­the Certosa cordial,—­and that in the shaking of a black sheep’s tail, or I will tell my father what thou wottest of.”  And she looked the very picture of diminutive severity.

“Very good, ma’m’selle; just as ye say,” said Gregory, fawning, with very poor grace, however.  “But, knave,” he snarled, as he turned away, with a black scowl at Nick, “if thou dost venture on any of thy scurvy pranks while I be gone, I’ll break thy pate.”