"There! there!" replied Sir Yvo, quite overpowered, and half amused by the mixture of art and artlessness, of real passion and affected sense of injury by which she had worked out her purpose. "There! there! enough said, Guendolen. You will have it as you will, depend on't. I might have known you would, from the beginning, and so have spared myself the pains of arguing with you. It must be as you will have it, and I will go buy the brood of Sir Philip at once; pray Heaven only that they will condescend to be manumitted, without my praying them to accept their liberty upon my knee. It will cost me a thousand zecchins or more, I warrant me, at the first, and then I shall have to find them lands of my lands, and to be security for their "were and mund," and I know not what. Alack-a-day! women ever! ever women! when we are young it is our sisters, our mistresses, our wives; when we grow old, our daughters!--and by my hopes of Heaven, I believe the last plague is the sorest!" "My funeral expenses, with the dole and alms and masses, would scarcely have cost you so much, Sir Yvo. Pity he did not let the stag work his will on me! Don't you think so, sir?" "Leave off your pouting, silly child. You have your own way, and that is all you care for; I don't believe you care the waving of a feather for the Saxons, so you may gratify your love of ruling, and force your father, who should show more sense and firmness, to yield to every one of your small caprices. So smooth that bent brow, and let us see a smile on those rosy lips again, and you may tell your Edith, if that's her name, that she shall be a free woman before sunset." "So you confess, after all this flurry, that it was but a _small_ caprice, concerning which you have so thwarted me. Well, I forgive you, sir, by this token,"--and, as she spoke, she threw her white arms about his neck, and kissed him on the forehead tenderly, before she added, "and now, to punish you, the next caprice I take shall be a great one, and you shall grant it to me without wincing. Hark you, there are the trumpets sounding for dinner, and you not point-device for the banquet-hall! but never heed to-day. There are no ladies to the feast, since I am not so well at ease as to descend the stair. Send me some ortolans and beccaficos from the table, sir; and above all, be sure, with the comfits and the Hypocras, you send me the deeds of manumission for Kenric and Edith, all in due form, else I will never hold you true knight any more, or gentle father." "Fare you well, my child, and be content. And if you rule your husband, when you get one, as you now rule your father, Heaven in its mercy help him, for he will have less of liberty to boast than the hardest-worked serf of them all. Fare you well, little wicked Guendolen."