Then said my lady, "Ay, nurse; but my brother, he is below--is't not so?" But when Marian shook her head, my lady sate up on the day-bed and caught hold of her short curls, and cried out, "I have banished him! I have made him an outlaw! I have banished him!" And for days she lay like one whose soul was sped. Well, the young lord came not back, nor would he write; so we knew not whether he were alive or dead. Yet were Marian and myself not unhopeful, for full oft did the heady boy find some such cause of disagreement with his sister to abide apart from her. But when we saw that in truth he came not back, and that week sped after week, and month did follow month, and still no tidings, we had perforce to acknowledge that the young lord was indeed gone to return no more. The Lady Margaret, in her loneliness, grew into many strange ways. She did outride any man in the county, and she had a blue-roan by the name of Robin Hood; which same, methinks, no man in or out o' th' county would 'a' cared to bestride. She would walk over to Pebworth ('piping Pebworth,' as Master Shakespeare hath dubbed it) and back again, a distance o' some six miles; and afterwards set forth for a gallop on Robin Hood, and be no more a-weary, come eventide, than myself from a trip 'round the gardens. She swam like a sea-maid, she had fenced even better than her brother, and methinks she was the bonniest shot with a long-bow of any woman in all England. She was but fifteen when my lord left Amhurste for aye, and in the years since she had grown mightily, and was waxed as strong as Marian, and full a head taller. But she had long, curved flanks that saved her from buxomness; and her head was set high and light on her shoulders, like a bird that floats on a wave, and o'er it ran her bright curls, the one o'er the other, like little wavelets. Her eyes were as gray as a sword, and as keen, and she had broad lids as white as satin-flowers, and there was a fine black ring around them, made by her long lashes. My lady was courted by many a fine lord, and more than three youngsters have I seen weep because of her coldness towards them; speeding them away out o' the sight o' mankind (as they thought), and casting themselves along the lush grass in my lady's garden, there to bleat and bleat, like moon-calves for the moon. For one lad did my heart bleed, verily. 'Twas for the young Lord of Mallow--but a lad with buttercup curls and speedwell eyes, and a smile to win the love o' any maid in her reason (though, to be sure, my lady was in her reason). He comes to me and gets between my knees, like any little eanling that might 'a' been mine own, and quoth he: "Butter, Butter, she loves thee! Wilt thou not speak to her, and tell her that she shall be the richest lady in all England, and maid of honor to the Queen, and have more jewels than the Queen herself? Oh, Butter!" cried he.