He could not see how the face under the clark veil grew suddenly as bright as though the sun had risen in it. And the lad said, rather breathlessly, “I wonder at your words, lord. You know that such hair is the curse of black elves.” Leaning back in his chair, the Etheling shook his head in whimsical obstinacy. “Not so, not so,” he persisted. “It has to it more lustre than has yellow. My lady-love shall have just such locks.” He had a glimpse like the flash of a bluebird’s wing in the sun, as the page glanced up at him, and the sight of a face grown suddenly rose-red. Then the boy turned shyly, and slipping back to his cushion on the step, nestled himself against the chair-arm with a sigh that was almost pathetic in its happiness. Like a quieting hand, the first of the mellow chords fell upon the noise of the revel. The servants bearing away the dishes began to tread the rushes on tiptoe, and a dozen frowns rebuked any clatter. Through the hush, the gleeman began to sing the “Romance of King Offa,” the king who married a wood nymph for dear love’s sake. It began with the wooing and the winning, out in the leafy greenwood amid bird-voices and murmuring brooks; but before long the enmity of the queen-mother entered, with jarring discords, to send the lovers through bitter trials. Lord and page, man and maid and serf, strained eye and ear toward the harper’s tattered figure. So breathless grew the listening stillness that the crackling of the fire became an annoyance. What matter that outside an autumn wind was howling through the forest and stripping the leaves through the vines? Within sound of the mellow harp-music it was balmiest spring-time, as the castlefolk followed the gleeman over the hills and dales of a flowering dream-world. For a space after he had finished, the silence remained unbroken, then gave way only to an outburst of applause. And one did even better than applaud. Bending forward, his beautiful face quite radiant with his pleasure, the curly-headed page pulled a golden ring from his pouch and tossed it into the harper’s lap. As he caught the largess, the man’s mouth broadened. “I thank you for your good-will, fair stripling,” he returned. “May you find as true a love when your time comes to go a-wooing.” The maids tittered, while the men guffawed, and a richer glow came into the cheeks of Fridtjof the page. Suddenly his iris-blue eyes were daringly a-sparkle. “The spirits will have forgot your wish before that time comes,” he laughed, “for I vow that I will raise a beard or ever I woo a maiden.”