"Very weak, Edith, and sore all over. I feel as if every limb were broken; and I want you, with your gentle hand and gentle voice, to soothe me." "Ah! dearest lady, our Holy Mother send that your spirit never may be so sore as to take no heed of the body's aching, nor your heart so broken as to know not whether your limbs were torn asunder." CHAPTER X. THE LADY AND THE SLAVE. "Weep not for him that dieth, For his struggling soul is free, And the world from which it flieth Is a world of misery; But weep for him that weareth The collar and the chain; To the agony he beareth, Death were but little pain." CAROLINE NORTON. "What mean you, Edith?" inquired the girl, raising herself from her pillow, as her attention was called to the unusually subdued tones of the Saxon maiden, who was, in her ordinary mood, so gay and joyous, and who appeared to be the general favorite of all around her; "what mean you, Edith?" she repeated; "you can not be speaking of yourself; you, who are ever blithesome and light-hearted as the bee on the blossom, or the bird on the bough. You can have no sorrows of the heart, I think, so penetrating as to make all outward bodily pains forgotten, and yet--you are pale, you are weeping? Tell me, girl--tell me, dear Edith, and let me be your friend." "Friend! lady," said the girl, looking at her wistfully, yet doubtfully withal; "you _my_ friend, noble lady! That were indeed impossible. I will not say, that to the poor, to the Saxon, to the _slave_, there can be _no_ friend, under heaven; but that you--you, a noble and a Norman! Alas! alas! that were indeed impossible!" "Impossible!" cried Guendolen, eagerly, forgetting her ailments in her fine and feeling excitement. "Wherefore, how should it be impossible? One God made us both, Edith; and made us both out of one clay, with one life here on earth, and one hereafter; both children of one fallen race, and heirs of one promise; both daughters of one fair, free land; both Englishwomen--then why not friends, Edith, and sisters?"