class; for, by old custom, all the sweetmeats brought by the novices on
the first day were in common.

All the party crowded round the heap of sweetmeats, which waxed greater
and greater, and I was standing among the others when I saw that the
scribe's daughter Ann, Cinderella, was standing lonely and hanging her
head by the tiled stove at the end of the room. I forthwith hastened to
her, pressed the little packet which Mistress Grosz had given me into her
hand--for I had it still hidden in my poke--and, whispered to her: "I had
two of them, little Ann; make haste and pour them on the heap."

She gave me a questioning look with her great eyes, and when she saw that
I meant it truly she nodded, and there was something in her tearful look
which I never can forget; and I mind, too, that when I passed the little
packet into her hand it seemed that I, and not she, had received the
favor.

She gave the sweetmeats she had taken from me to the eldest, and
spoke not a word, and did not seem to mark that they all mocked at the
smallness of the packet. But soon enough their scorn was turned to glee
and praises; for out of Cinderella's parcel such fine sweetmeats fell on
to the heap as never another one had brought with her, and among them was
a little phial of attar of roses from the Levant.

At first Ann had cast an anxious look at me, then she seemed as though
she cared not; but when the oil of roses came to light she took it firmly
in her hand to give to me. But Ursula cried out: "Nay. Whatsoever the
new-comers bring is for all to share in common!" Notwithstanding, Ann
laid her hand on mine, which already held the phial, and said boldly: "I
give this to Margery, and I renounce all the rest."