ed some credit, because with ladies
my lord was ever blithe and _debonnaire_. That he loved many I do not
deny; but while he loved, he loved right loyally, and, indeed, it is
no small honour to be loved by a man of so much worship, even for
a little--the which many women thought also, and those amongst the
fairest. And I doubt not that as long as she lived, he loved his wife
Solita no less ardently than those with whom he fell in after she had
most unfortunately died.

The Sieur Rudel was born within the castle of Princess Joceliande,
and there grew to childhood and from childhood to youth, being ever
entreated with great amity and love for his own no less than for his
father's sake. Though of a slight and delicate figure, he excelled in
all manly exercises and sports and in venery and hawking. There was
not one about the court that could equal him. Books too he read, and
in many languages, labouring at philosophies and logics, so that had
you but heard him speak, and not marked the hardihood of his limbs
and his open face, you might have believed you were listening to some
doxical monk.

In the tenth year of his age came Solita to the castle, whence no man
knew, nor could they ever learn more than this, that she sailed out of
the grey mists of a November morning to our bleak Brittany coast in a
white-painted boat. A fisherman drew the boat to land, perceiving
it when he was casting his nets, and found a woman-child therein,
cushioned upon white satin; and marvelling much at the richness of her
purveyance, for even the sail of the boat was of white silk, he bore
her straightway to the castle. And the abbot took her and baptised her
and gave her Sola for a name. "For," said he, "she hath come alone and
none knoweth her parentage or place." In time she grew to exceeding
beauty, with fair hair clustering like finest silk above her temples
and curling waywardly about her throat; wondrous fair she was and
white, shaming the snowdrops, so that all men stopped and gazed at her
as she passed.

And the Princess Joceliande, perceiving her, joined her to the company
of her hand-maidens and took great delight in her for her modesty and
beauty, so that at last she changed her name. "Sola have you been
called till now," she said, "but henceforth shall your name be Solita,
as who shall say 'you have become my wont.'"

Meanwhile the Sieur Rudel was advanced from honour to honour, until
he stood ever at the right hand of the Prince