"'Twas not what I meant to say," he retorted. "And in sooth, I can find fault with you no more than with Prior Thomas. But you are growing fast to womanhood, and----well, I marked your uncle cast dubious eyes at those breeches as we rode forth this morning." She laughed. "Bless his dear old heart! That will have been Dame Alicia, dropping words of wisdom in his ear. Can I not hear her! 'But my lord, she grows over-old for such pranks! 'Tis time a stop was put to such hoydenish ways!' Oh, I know her! Soon, Hugh, they will have me in bounds worse than ever were set for you." Her voice took on a melancholy note, and Hugh involuntarily stretched out his hand to pat her shoulder. "But I shall be ready to squire you," he said. "Have we not planned that I shall be your knight?" "Ay, but mayhap you will be far away." She spoke quite seriously, her eyes fixed on the distance where the spire of Crowden Priory soared above the opening fields. "Do not forget, Hugh, that my way lies toward Outremer, no less than yours. Some day my father will send for me, and that day must I go. He has lacked me over-long." "That is all settled," declared Hugh. "Have we not agreed that my errantry lies eastward into Outremer, to Constantinople and Byzantium, as well as to the Holy Land?" She looked at him shyly, half-woman, half-child; underneath the soberness of maidenhood, the gaiety of childhood only half-suppressed. "Dame Alicia says that men are prodigal of words, and loath to make them good," she answered. "A plague on her for a sour old maid!" cried Hugh. "Here, there shall be no doubt of this! Wilt have me for your knight, Edith?" Her cheeks reddened, her eyes suffused and dropped, at the note of mastery ringing in his voice. "Yes, Hugh," she murmured so low he scarce could hear her above the thudding of hoofs on the leaf-mould. "Then 'tis fitting you give me a badge to wear for you as my lady," he pressed. "Art in earnest, Hugh?" "Never was I more so." "What--what shall it be?" she asked faintly. He surveyed her swiftly. "It must be something I can wear on my helm without fear of its tattering," he explained. "I know not----" "My glove?" she offered. "Ay, the very thing!" She stripped it from her right hand and gave it to him. Hugh bent low as he received it, then stood in his stirrups and waved it high in air. "A pledge to you, Edith," he cried. "I swear to you by St. James, my father's patron saint and mine, that whilst I have this token no barriers shall keep me from you, if you call me to your aid. I will be a true knight to you, and serve you diligently in all that you require." Her eyes shone. "That was finely spoken, Hugh, and I know there was never knight so true as you will be." "Ay, when I have won knighthood," rejoined Hugh, a trifle moodily, his first enthusiasm past. "We forget I have yet to earn the accolade--at an age when many men are warriors of name and fame."