'We will have you back, my bairn, so soon as my goodman can go with
you, but now I would have you up and dressed, ay, and washed, ere he
and Hal come in. Then after meat and prayer you will be ready to
go.'

'To Greystone Priory,' returned the girl. 'Yea, I would have thee to
know,' she added, with a little dignity that sat drolly on her bare
feet and disordered hair and cap as she rose out of bed, 'that the
Sisters are accountable for me. I am the Lady Anne St. John. My
father is a lord in Bedfordshire, but he is gone to the wars in
Burgundy, and bestowed me in a convent at York while he was abroad,
but the Mother thought her house would be safer if I were away at the
cell at Greystone when Queen Margaret and the Red Rose came north.'

'And is that the way they keep you safe?' asked the hostess, who
meanwhile was attending to her in a way that, if the Lady Anne had
known it, was like the tendance of her own nurse at home, instead of
that of a rough peasant woman.

'Oh, we all like the chase, and the Mother had a new cast of hawks
that she wanted to fly. There came out a heron, and she threw off
the new one, and it went careering up--and up--and we all rode after,
and just as the bird was about to pounce down, into a dyke went my
pony, Imp, and not one of them saw! Not Bertram Selby, the Sisters,
nor the groom, nor the rabble rout that had come out of Greystone;
and before I could get free they were off; and the pony, Imp of Evil
that he is, has not learnt to know me or my voice, and would not let
me catch him, but cantered off--either after the other horses or to
the Priory. I knew not where I was, and halloaed myself hoarse, but
no one heard, and I went on and on, and lost my way!'