"My father was a Lancastrian, and my mother a great friend of our
Queen Margaret of Anjou, and they were with her all the time she
was in exile."

"How quarrelsome you English are!" De Lille said. "You seem to be
always fighting among yourselves."

"I don't think," Gervaise said, with a smile, "there is any love
lost between Louis of France and the Duke of Burgundy, to say
nothing of other great lords."

"No; you are right there. But though we talk a great deal about
fighting, it is only occasionally that we engage in it."

The pages' room was a small one. It contained two pallets, which
served as seats by day, and two wooden chests, in which they kept
their clothes.

Their conversation was interrupted by the ringing of a bell.

"That is supper," De Lille said, jumping up. "We will leave you
here while we go down to stand behind our lord's chair. When the
meal is over we will bring a pasty or something else good, and a
measure of wine, and have our supper together up here; and we will
tell the servitors to bring up another pallet for you. Of course,
you can go down with us if you like."

"Thank you, I would much rather stay here. Every one would be
strange to me, and having nothing to do I should feel in the way."