"Sorrel filly, indeed!" said the girl, half-laughing, half-indignant. "I wish you could see my lady, Damian, if you call me fidgety and hot-tempered. I wish you could see my lady, that's just all, this morning." "The message, the message, Marguerite, if there be one, or if you have aught in your head but to make mischief." "Why, I do believe my lady's bewitched since her fall; for nothing will go down with her now-a-days but that pink-and-white, flaxen-haired doll, Edith. I can't think what she sees in her, that she must needs ever have the clumsy Saxon wench about her. I should think gentle Norman blood might serve her turn." "I don't know, Marguerite," answered the boy, wishing to tease her; "Edith is a very pretty girl, indeed; I don't know but she's the very prettiest I ever saw. Dark-haired and dark-eyed people always admire their opposites, they say; and for my part, I think her blue eyes glance as if they reflected heaven's own light in them; and her flaxen-hair looks like a cloud high up in heaven, that has just caught the first golden glitter of the morning sunbeams. And clumsy! how can you call her clumsy, Marguerite? I am sure, when she came flitting down the hill, with her long locks flowing in the breeze, and her thin garments streaming back from her shapely figure, she looked liker to a creature of the air, than to a mere mortal girl, running down a sandy road. I should like to see you run like her, Mistress Marguerite." "Me run!" exclaimed the Norman damsel, indignantly; "when ever did you see a Norman lady _run_? But you're just like the rest of them; caught ever by the first fresh face. Well, sir, since you're so bewitched, like my pretty lady above stairs, with your Saxon angel, the message I have brought you will just meet your humor. You will see, sir, if this Saxon angel be in the castle, sir; and if she be not, sir, your magnificence will proceed to the Saxon quarter, and request her angelship to come forthwith to my lady's chamber, and to come quickly, too. And you can escort her, Sir Page, and lend her your hand up the hill; and steal a kiss, if you can, Sir Page, on the way!" "Just so, Mistress Marguerite," returned the boy, "just so. Your commands shall be obeyed to the letter. And as to the kiss, I'll try, if I can get a chance; but I'm afraid she's too modest to kiss young men." And, taking up his dirk and bonnet from the board, he darted out of the room, without awaiting her reply, having succeeded, to his heart's content, in chafing her to somewhat higher than blood-heat; so that she returned to her lady's bower even more discomposed than when she left it; but Guendolen was too much occupied with other thoughts to notice the girl's ill-temper, and within half an hour a light foot was heard at the door, and the Saxon slave girl entered. "How can I serve you, dear lady?" she said, coming up, and kneeling at the couch side. "You are very pale. I trust you be not the worse this morning."