time, and win and woo in the same breath. No hard task, methinks, for
Harold of the golden tongue."

"Sir, and father," replied the young Earl, whom the long speech addressed
to him had prepared for its close, and whose habitual self-control saved
him from disclosing his emotion, "I thank you duteously, for your care
for my future, and hope to profit by your wisdom. I will ask the King's
leave to go to my East Anglians, and hold there a folkmuth, administer
justice, redress grievances, and make thegn and ceorl content with
Harold, their Earl. But vain is peace in the realm, if there is strife
in the house. And Aldyth, the daughter of Algar, cannot be house-wife to
me."

"Why?" asked the old Earl, calmly, and surveying his son's face with
those eyes so clear yet so unfathomable.

"Because, though I grant her fair, she pleases not my fancy, nor would
give warmth to my hearth. Because, as thou knowest well, Algar and I
have ever been opposed, both in camp and in council; and I am not the man
who can sell my love, though I may stifle my anger. Earl Harold needs no
bride to bring spearmen to his back at his need; and his lordships he
will guard with the shield of a man, not the spindle of a woman."

"Said in spite and in error," replied the old Earl, coolly. "Small pain
had it given thee to forgive Algar old quarrels, and clasp his hand as a
father-in-law--if thou hadst had for his daughter what the great are
forbidden to regard save as a folly."

"Is love a folly, my father?"

"Surely, yes," said the Earl, with some sadness--"surely, yes, for those
who know that life is made up of business and care, spun out in long
years, nor counted by the joys of an hour. Surely, yes; thinkest thou
that I loved my first wife, the proud sister of Canute, or that Edith,
thy sister, loved Edward, when he placed the crown on her head?"

"My father, in Edith, my sister, our House has sacrificed enow to selfish
power."

"I grant it, to selfish power," answered the eloquent old man, "but not
enow for England's safety. Look to it, Harold; thy years, and thy fame,
and thy state, place thee free from my control as a father, but not till
thou sleepest in thy cerements art thou free from that father--thy land!
Ponder it in thine own wise mind--wiser already than that which speaks to
it under the hood of grey hairs. Ponder it, and ask thyself if thy
power, when I am dead, is not necessary to the weal of England? and if
aught tha