106 MASTER SKYLARK

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.

“Ts London town all smoke-pipes?” he asked con-
fusedly.

“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