Leofric and Jack would visit their old homes--the farm and the monks of St. Michael--and join the other party as they approached Oxford. Leofric had the messages and the token to deliver to Alys from Amalric, and greatly would he have feared this part of his task had it not been for Linda's words. They often talked of Alys as they paced the alleys of the garden together during the few days that Leofric remained the guest of Hugh, recalling the past days of their student life in Oxford, and how strangely fortune had dealt with them, throwing them together, and into the company of the Constable's daughter. Now Linda was the wife of a prosperous gentleman, who by the favour of the Prince had good prospects of rising to knighthood; and Leofric, from being a poor clerk, almost of the begging class, was a Master, a man of some substance, as riches went in those days, and could, as Linda once softly suggested, "mate with any maiden, even of a noble house, for his learning and the prospect held out to him of princely favour." Then a red flush crept into Leofric's cheek, and he made answer,-- "There is only one maiden in all the world for me; and how can I dare to hope that she will have thought to spare for so humble a suppliant as myself?" "Thou hadst better ask her what she thinks of the suppliant," said Linda softly. "Methinks a faint heart beseems not an earnest wooer." Leofric gave her a searching look. "Mistress Linda, what dost thou mean?" he questioned. She looked at him with a smile in her eyes. "Thou hadst better ask Alys what I mean." CHAPTER XXX. _ON THE STILL ISIS._ The breath of spring was in the air. The verdant meadows had put on their rich new dress, and the flowers were springing up as if to welcome the returning strength and heat of the sun. The fritillaries gemmed the river-banks, and the stretches of woodland were blue with the carpet of fragrant wild hyacinth. The song of the cuckoo was in the air, and on north slopes the star-like primrose lingered yet. The chill east winds were changed to soft, summer-like zephyrs from the south, and everything in nature spoke of joy and hope and coming summer-tide. Between its green banks, fringed sometimes by stately forest trees; meandering sometimes through wide stretches of green pasture, where cattle fattened upon the rich herbage or stood knee-deep in the shallow tide, the silent Isis slipped leisurely along. Passing the Abbey of Eynsham, it widened out to a considerable breadth as it pursued its leisurely course towards the city of Oxford, seeming to linger lovingly in these pleasant reaches, far from the tumult and stir which surrounds the abodes of man.