found standing by it a figure entirely new to him. It was a young
girl of some twelve or fourteen years old, in the round white cap
worn by all of her age and sex; but from beneath it hung down two
thick plaits of the darkest hair he had ever seen, and though the
dress was of the ordinary dark serge with a coloured apron, it was
put on with an air that made it look like some strange and beautiful
costume on the slender, lithe, little form. The vermilion apron was
further trimmed with a narrow border of white, edged again with deep
blue, and it chimed in with the bright coral earrings and necklace.
As Ambrose came forward the creature tried to throw a crimson
handkerchief over her head, and ran into the shelter of another
door, but not before Ambrose had seen a pair of large dark eyes so
like those of a terrified fawn that they seemed to carry him back to
the Forest. Going back amazed, he asked his companion who the girl
he had seen could have been.

Will stared. "I trow you mean the old blackamoor sword-cutler's
wench. He is one of those pestilent strangers. An 'Ebrew Jew who
worships Mahound and is too bad for the Spanish folk themselves."

This rather startled Ambrose, though he knew enough to see that the
accusations could not both be true, but he forgot it in the delight,
when Will pronounced the work done, of drawing back the curtain and
feasting his eyes upon the black backs of the books, and the black-
letter brochures that lay by them. There were scarcely thirty, yet
he gloated on them as on an inexhaustible store, while Will,
whistling wonder at his taste, opined that since some one was there
to look after the stove, and the iron pot on it, he might go out and
have a turn at ball with Hob and Martin.