the stranger out of our city as well without him as with
him.' Truly, there was not a man to come up to her. She handled sword
as well as any marshal of the King's host; no assault could surprise
her, no disappointment could crush her, nor could any man, however wily,
take her off her guard. When she had gone forward to Hennebon--for
Rennes surrendered ere help could come from our King--man said she rade
all up and down the town, clad in armour, encouraging the townsmen, and
moving the women to go up to the ramparts and thence to hurl down on the
besiegers the stones that they tare up from the paved streets. Never
man fought like her!"

"If it please you, Dame, was her lord never set free?" asked Amphillis,
considerably interested.

"Ay and no," said Lady Foljambe. "Set free was he never, but he escaped
out of Louvre [Note 2] in disguise of a pedlar, and so came to England
to entreat the King's aid; but his Grace was then so busied with foreign
warfare that little could he do, and the poor Count laid it so to heart
that he died. He did but return home to die in his wife's arms."

"Oh, poor lady!" said Amphillis.

"Three years later," said Lady Foljambe, "this lady took prisoner Sir
Charles de Blois, the husband of the Lady Joan, and brought him to the
King; also bringing her young son, that was then a lad of six years, and
was betrothed to the King's daughter, the Lady Mary. The King ordered
her residence in the Castle of Tickhill, where she dwelt many years,
until a matter of two years back, when she was brought hither."

Amphillis felt this account exceedingly unsatisfactory.

"Dame," said she, "if I may have leave to ask at you, wherefore is this
lady a prisoner? What hath she done?"

Lady Foljambe's lips took a stern set. She was apparently not pleased
with the freedom of the question.

"She was a very troublesome person," said she. "Nothing could stay her;
she was ever restless and interfering. But these be matters too high
for a young maid such as thou. Thou wert best keep to thy broidery and
such-like duties."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harvest Home--the sixteenth of August--arrived when Amphillis had been a
week at Hazelwood. She had not by any means concluded that process
which is known as "settling down." On the contrary, she had never felt
so unsettled, and the feeling grew rather than diminished. Even
Alexandra and Ricarda had tried he