That was why, throughout this discussion he had observed the face of a young woman that sat beyond the ladies Rohtraut, Isopel and Douce. She was the Lady Margaret of the Wear, coming from the neighbouring tower of Glororem, and that day he was to bless her betrothal to Young Lovell of the Castle. She was a dark girl, rising twenty, and with brownish features, open nostrils, a flush on her face and dark eyes of a coaly-sheen, all of one piece of black, so that you could not tell pupil from iris. She had never spoken, as became her station, since she was the youngest woman there. But the Bishop Palatine had observed her looks as each uttered his or her thoughts, and from this he knew that she regarded the Lady Rohtraut with tender veneration, and the lower classes behind the pillars with dislike and contempt, for when their voices became loud she had lowered her black brows and clenched her hand that lay along the table. Upon the Border Warden and upon the gross Lord Lovell she had gazed with a tolerant contempt, upon the Knight of Cullerford with a bitter scorn, upon Haltwhistle with irony, and upon their two wives that should be her sisters-in-law, with high dislike. He perceived that, like the Lady Rohtraut, she had read the book called "Faicts of Arms," for, when the lady Rohtraut had been speaking of it, she had leaned sideways over the table, her lips parted as if she could hardly contain herself. He saw also that she was of great piety, since every time Our Lady was mentioned in that debate she inclined, and when it was Our Lord, she did the like and crossed herself. And this pleased the Bishop Palatine, for these observances were not so often seen as could be done with. Moreover, he knew that, plainly to the eye she had given all her heart—and it was a proud and hot one—to the Young Lovell. At each mention of his deeds her dusky cheeks would flush up to her white forehead and she would pass her gemmed hands before her eyes as if they saw a mist of gladness. The Bishop was glad that the will of God and the bent of his own mind could let his speech, that he was thinking upon, jump so well with that lady’s desires, and so he addressed himself at first to the Lady Rohtraut, young Lovell’s proud mother. He had not, he said, spoken before in that high assembly because he was so newly come among them that, although he well knew that he was their father in God and in a sense their temporal protector, yet he did not wish to show himself to them as a rash and ardent fool by dictating upon matters that he might well know little of.