Beside him sat his beautiful sister, in whose honour all the guests were assembled;--like him, yet showing, in spite of all feminine grace and softness, signs of that strength of will in which he was deficient. Her features, like his, were clear-cut and aquiline, but the full round chin stood out boldly from the white, flawless throat, unadorned by any necklace save the delicate crease which Nature had marked on it, and which some folks call Venus' necklace. Her auburn hair was simply braided in two long plaits, and hung below her waist, and was bound by a fillet of goldsmiths' work. Her arched brows were almost black, and the dark-blue eyes beneath them were full of gentleness and fire. Her tightly-fitting green kirtle was rounded at the base of the slender neck and edged with drawn lawn, and showed the graceful contour of her young figure; and her embroidered skirt, which had been 'looted' by her noble father from the house of some rich Saxon in his Hastings campaign, bore witness to the artistic powers of the Saxon ladies, and also to their industry, for its subtly blended hues had taken years of labour to produce, and such skill as was possessed only by the women of their nation. Standing near her, with his hand upon her chair, was the hero of the occasion. Ralph de Guader's Breton mother had Southern blood in her veins, and he had inherited from her a swart complexion, coal-black hair which curled crisply on his well-formed head, and the hawk nose and pointed chin which is common in Brittany now, though the Bretons of that day had for the most part the characteristics of the red-haired, blue-eyed Celts, who had left Wales but a short time before. From his English father he had inherited a pair of keen grey eyes, hawk-like as the nose between them, and deep set under cavernous brows, black, and somewhat given to frowning. His figure was firmly knit, broad-shouldered, but not very tall, and his apparel was as brave as that of his brother earl, his tunic being of ivory silk edged with sable and wrought with gold thread, and the baldric blazed with jewels which supported his _miséricorde_, or dagger of mercy,--a weapon always worn by a Norman noble, and serving to put his wounded enemies out of misery--whence its name,--to protect him from treachery, and to carve his meat and that of the lady he 'took in' to dinner withal. The deft Adelina had swallowed swords, and made snakes dance to her piping, and produced intact bracelets which had seemed to be utterly crushed to powder before the spectators' eyes, and had danced herself with marvellous agility and grace, and, in short, had performed many feats which have been rivalled before and since by jugglers ancient and modern, when a young baron stood forth and said to Earl Roger,-- 'I have heard, my lord, that yonder Paynim witch hath shrewd skill to read the stars. I prithee, command her that she may tell the fates of those who list to know what shall befall them.'