“No more unseemly than for the dame to be ever holding converse with their captain,” retorted the North Country hand-maiden, free of speech and with a toss of the head. “Whist, Thora! or you must take a buffet,” said Grisell, clenching a fist unused to striking, and trying to regard chastisement as a duty. “You know full well that my only speech with Master Hardcastle is as his hostess.” Thora laughed. “Ay, lady; I ken well what the men say. How that poor youth is spell-bound, and that you are casting your glamour over him as of old over my poor old lady and little Master Bernard.” “For shame, Thora, to bring me such tales!” and Grisell’s hand actually descended on her maiden’s face, but so slight was the force that it only caused a contemptuous laugh, which so angered the young mistress as to give her energy to strike again with all her might. “And you’d beat me,” observed her victim, roused to anger. “You are so ill favoured yourself that you cannot bear a man to look on a fair maid!” “What insolence is this?” cried Grisell, utterly amazed. “Go into the turret room, spin out this hank, and stay there till I call you to supper. Say your Ave, and recollect what beseems a modest maiden.” She spoke with authority, which Thora durst not resist, and withdrew still pouting and grumbling. Grisell was indeed young herself and inexperienced, and knew not that her wrath with the girl might be perilous to herself, while sympathy might have evoked wholesome confidence. For the maiden, just developing into northern comeliness, was attractive enough to win the admiration of soldiers in garrison with nothing to do, and on her side their notice, their rough compliments, and even their jests, were delightful compared with the dulness of her mistress’s mourning chamber, and court enough was paid to her completely to turn her head. If there were love and gratitude lurking in the bottom of her heart towards the lady who had made a fair and skilful maiden out of the wild fisher girl, all was smothered in the first strong impulse of love for this young Ralph Hart, the first to awaken the woman out of the child. The obstacles which Grisell, like other prudent mistresses in all times, placed in the course of this true love, did but serve to alienate the girl and place her in opposition. The creature had grown up as wild and untamed as one of the seals on the shore, and though she had had a little training and teaching of late years, it was entirely powerless when once the passion was evoked in her by the new intercourse and rough compliments of the young archer, and she was for the time at his beck and call, regarding her lady as her tyrant and enemy. It was the old story of many a household. CHAPTER XVIII WITCHERY The lady has gone to her secret bower, The bower that was guarded by word and by spell. SCOTT, _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_.