Companion to 'The Town House' Maude was eleven years old when she left her grandfather's house and went to live at Beauclaire Castle It was the fifteenth century and Maude, as befitted a girl with noble blood, was to learn the accomplishments of a lady - how to sew a tapestry, to play the lute, to conduct herself gracefully in a household of knights and squires The journey to Beauclaire - cross country on her small pony - was long and arduous And when she at last arrived at the mediaeval estates of my Lord and Lady Astallon, she found that her adventures were only just beginning