ived the day before.

He was an exceedingly handsome man of about six-and-twenty; moderately
tall and strong, but with an air of graceful activity in all his
movements that gave people, somehow, the belief that whatever he chose
to attempt he could do. Both his olive complexion and his tongue
betokened him a foreigner, for although the language he spoke was
Albionic, it was what we now style broken--very much broken indeed.
With a small head, short curly black hair, a very young beard, and small
pointed moustache, fine intellectual features, and an expression of
imperturbable good-humour, he presented an appearance which might have
claimed the regard of any woman. At all events the queen had formed a
very high opinion of him--and she was a woman of much experience, having
seen many men in her day. Hafrydda, though, of course, not so
experienced, fully equalled her mother, if she did not excel her, in her
estimate of the young stranger.

As we should be unintelligible if we gave the youth's words in the
broken dialect, we must render his speech in fair English.

"I cannot tell how deeply I am grieved to hear this dreadful news of my
dear friend," he said, with a look of profound sorrow that went home to
the mother's heart.

"And did you really come to this land for the sole purpose of seeing my
dear boy?" asked the queen.

"I did. You cannot imagine how much we loved each other. We were
thrown together daily--almost hourly. We studied together; we competed
when I was preparing for the Olympic games; we travelled in Egypt and
hunted together. Indeed, if it had not been for my dear old mother, we
should have travelled to this land in the same ship."

"Your mother did not wish you to leave her, I suppose?"

"Nay, it was I who would not leave _her_. Her unselfish nature would
have induced her to make any sacrifice to please me. It was only when
she died that my heart turned with unusual longing to my old companion
Bladud, and I made up my mind to quit home and traverse the great sea in
search of him."

A grateful look shot from Hafrydda's blue eyes, but it was lost on the
youth, who sat gazing at the floor as if engrossed with his great
disappointment.

"I cannot understand," he continued, in an almost reproachful tone, "how
you could ever make up your minds to banish him, no matter how deadly
the disease that had smitten him."

The princess's fair face flushed deeply, and she shook back her golden
curl