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By his side rode Queen Eleanor, looking regal and charming in her long brocade riding-habit; while immediately behind them came Prince Richard and Prince John, each attired in knightly coats of mail and helmets. Lords and ladies of the realm followed; and finally, the ten companies of archers, whose progress round the field was greeted with hardly less applause than that given the King himself.

We have reached, at length, the consummation of this more than knightly quest, this veritable pilgrimage, the story of which I have tried to tell. When I began it last year, I asked you to go with me, in thought, to a secluded inland village in our own Diocese. Now I must ask you to go with me to a grey old city, the capital of northern Scotland, which looks out upon the German ocean.

There he reigns a mighty king, Thence to Britain shall return, If right prophetic rolls I learn, Borne on victory's spreading plume, His ancient sceptre to resume, His knightly table to restore, And brave the tournaments of yore."

An unreproved sensation of melting pervaded her; she knew her capacity for gratitude, and conjuring it up in her 'heart, there came with it the noble knightly gentleman who would really stoop to take a plain girl by the hand, release her, and say: 'Be mine! His vizor was down, of course. She had no power of imagining the lineaments of that prodigy. Or was he a dream? He came and went.

The knightly adventurers did not find gold, and we may guess, as winter came on with heavy snows in the Upper Desert, they were in no very good mood; for now began that contest between white adventurers and Pueblos which lasted down to the middle of the Nineteenth Century. At the pueblo now known as Bernalillo, the soldiers demanded blankets to protect them from the cold.

Still he could boast of the same noble and knightly presence as of old, and his pale face, paler than ever I had known it, under his straight black hair, with the feeble tones of his soft voice, went right to many a maiden's heart; also his rich black dress, sparkling with fine gems, beseemed him well.

"Come, we must not again disagree; but, by my halidame, I think one troubadour roundel worth all that Petrarch ever wrote. He has but borrowed from our knightly poesy, to disguise it, like a carpet coxcomb." "Well," said Adrian, gaily, "for every line of the troubadours that you quote, I will cite you another. I will forgive you for injustice to Petrarch, if you are just to the troubadours."

Then Froda started up eagerly, and cried, "Let it be as you have said!" and gave her his knightly hand to confirm his words. But he could not grasp the hand of the peasant-woman, although her dark form remained close before him.

These couples are thus condemned by fortune to intimacy during the year. The gentleman is always to be at the orders of the dame and to serve her faithfully in every knightly fashion. He has all the duties and none of the privileges of a lover, unless it be the joy of those "who stand and wait."

Then, as was the custom of the land, the good squires spurred forward to the castle gate before the proud knights. There the king alighted from his horse, and, on knightly wise, the heroes lifted down the women. There, too, the noble queens parted. Uta and her daughter went with their attendants into a wide chamber, and a merry din was heard over all.