As her glance fell upon this last picture, Randalin drew a quick breath of admiration. While they waited for the bondwomen to restore to the hampers the crystal goblets and gold-fringed napkins that even in the wood wastes must minister to such delicate lips, one merry little lady was launching fleets of beech-nut rinds down the stream; another, armed with a rush-spear, was making bold attack on the slumbers of some woodland creature which she had spied out basking on the sunny side of a stump; and in the centre of the open, the Lady Elfgiva was amusing herself with the treasures of red and gold leaves which silk-clad pages were bringing from the thicket. Gazing at her, Randalin’s admiration mounted to wistfulness. “Were I like that, I should be sure of his feeling toward me,” she sighed. Certainly, as she looked to-day sitting under the towering trees, it was easy to understand why the King’s wife had been named “the gift of the elves.” Every lovely thing in Nature had been robbed to make her, and only fairy fingers could have woven the sun’s gold into such tresses, or made such eyes from a scrap of June sky and a spark of opal fire. From the crown of her jewelled hair to the toe of her little red shoe, there was not one line misplaced, one curve forgotten, while her motions were as graceful as blowing willows. When the pair came toward her over the carpet of leather-hued leaves, she put out a white hand in beckoning. “Come here, my Valkyria, and let me try if I can make you look still more like a gay bird from over the East Sea.” “You have made me look a very splendid bird, lady,” Randalin said gratefully, as she knelt to receive the woodland crown. Elfgiva patted the brown cheeks in acknowledgment, and also in delight at the effect of her handiwork. “You are an honor to my art. Do you know that the night before you came to me I dreamed I held a burning candle in my hand, and that is known by everybody to be a sign of good. A hundred plans are in my mind against the time that this peace shall be over, and we are obliged to return to that loathful house where we suffer so much with dulness that the quarrels of my little brats are the only excitement we have.” Still kneeling for the white fingers to pat and pull at her head-dress, Randalin looked up wonderingly. “Is it your belief that King Canute will not carry out his intention, lady, that you say ‘when the peace is over’? I know for certain that it is expected to last forever.”