"Odda, right glad am I to meet with thee," she said. "Dost thou mind thee how at Winchester I let my head-rail fall from a window into the buckthorn-tree, and how thou didst climb in and get it again, and didst send it me by my mother's woman?" I remembered. Being but a henchman of the stable, I could not myself go with it. How gracious her smile! How mild her condescension! Great wonder was it throughout the land, I knew, that she should be so lowly-sweet. The Lady Edith was little like to Earl Godwin her father, the rugged, grim old man! Although at this time about forty-four years old, as I think, she was an exceedingly fair woman still. Her skin was white as walrus-bone, and very little wrinkled; her hair long, thick, and red-golden as ever it had been, for though she was now hooded and staidly wimpled, I saw it uncovered later on that morning, and I could find therein no grizzled strand. Her clothing? She was cloaked and hooded, meseemeth, in fallow hue--and a little cross, finely-wrought in silver, hung at her throat; but how can a man speak of women's garments? I know that her mouth was soft and kindly, and quivered a little sometimes when she was not speaking; and there were now black shadows beneath her big grey eyes--maybe from the hardship of her journeying. "My lady," I answered, "I beg that ye will rest awhile, and eat of the food that I have here. Alack! I have no drink to set before you! We brought mead, but in the heat an hour agone it burst our bottles; and there is no water near at hand--we have but lately sought it." The lady raised her hands to her brows in most weary wise. "Good Odda," she said, notwithstanding, "I thank thee much for thy kindness in thus coming, and for all the pains that thou hast taken. And since thy mead was lost on my behalf, I thank thee for it also. Let us sit here awhile and eat, as thou sayest; we are sore anhungered, that is sure. And later we will go find my reeve at Stoke over yonder. He will doubtless have one drop of somewhat for us each to drink. We also emptied our flasks an hour ago, silly souls that we were!" She had with her her mass-priest, her women, her men-at-arms, her thralls. We sat down upon the ground, and broke the pasty into portions, and dealt out my fine wheaten bread. As she talked with me of the old days in her own home, suddenly we heard a noise in the woodland upon our right--a child's voice wailing--the voices of two children. Far away at first, then somewhat nearer. Two wandering children, crying fit to burst their bosoms. Great breathless, thirsty sobs, swelling every now and then to a despairing roar. The lady had sprung to her feet, and had broken through the nearest bushes into the thicket beyond. "Hither! hither!" she cried. "Come! Come! But where are ye? Weep no more--here is help!"