There were gay doings in the hall and the villages around Bellamont in the June of 1258, when a noble party of guests had assembled at the hall to share the festivities at the forthcoming marriage of the ladies Idonea and Avice, the twin daughters of Richard Earl Bellamont and his noble countess. More than one disappointed suitor was there amongst the party, either too proud to show his wounds, or gallantly indifferent; for as the earl's only son had been drowned in his childhood, the fair maidens were known to be co-heiresses, and not a neighbouring lord or knight but would have been well pleased to add a slice of the Bellamont lands to his own estate. Then report said the sisters were wonderfully fair and virtuous; that their lady-mother had early initiated them into the mysteries of good housewifery; and the learned Prior of Burton (John de Stretton) had opened unto them the still greater mysteries of reading, writing, accounts, and religion--not least, if last. No wonder, then, that many a lance was set in rest and broken in tilt or tourney for one or other of the sisters, seeing they were endowed with beauty, wealth, thrift, learning, and the Christian graces. Such prizes are not often offered for the winning. The Countess Joan would fain have given one of her daughters to a kinsman, William Harpur, of Ticknall, but fate, and, it may be, Prior John, had determined otherwise. Idonea had promised her hand to Sir Ralph de Egginton; and Sir Gilbert Findern--in whose gardens bloomed the fair blossoms his father had brought from the Holy Land--was the heart's-chosen of sweet Avice. "Two as gallant knights, my lady," said the earl to his busy spouse, "as father could desire for the honour and protection of his girls, when his own arm grows feeble, or his grey head rests on a stone pillow. Methinks thy kinsman, Will Harpur, covets most my coffer and lands, he was so willing to bid for Avice when Idonea said 'nay' to his suit." However that might be, both he and the prior joined the gay cavalcade that issued from the triply arched gateway of the hall, bent on flying their hawks on Sinfin Moor. Gay, indeed, if brilliant apparel, buoyant hearts, and bounding steeds might count for gaiety. Luxury in dress was an enormity of the time, as of this. The young Ladies Bellamont, considering their rank, made less ostentatious display of wealth in their attire than any of their companions that bright June morning. Each wore a cyclas, or tunic of purple velours (velvet) bordered with gold, over a tawny silken robe, that hid the long points of their embroidered shoes, as they reined in their palfreys, gracefully seated on the new high-backed side-saddles, the observed of all observers.