o of her maidens, bearing a small cyst, or chest. The
Vala motioned to her attendants to lay the cyst at the feet of Githa, and
that done, with lowly salutation they left the room.

The superstitions of the Danes were strong in Githa; and she felt an
indescribable awe when Hilda stood before her, the red light playing on
the Vala's stern marble face, and contrasting robes of funereal black.
But, with all her awe, Githa, who, not educated like her daughter Edith,
had few feminine resources, loved the visits of her mysterious kinswoman.
She loved to live her youth over again in discourse on the wild customs
and dark rites of the Dane; and even her awe itself had the charm which
the ghost tale has to the child;--for the illiterate are ever children.
So, recovering her surprise, and her first pause, she rose to welcome the
Vala, and said:

"Hail, Hilda, and thrice hail! The day has been warm and the way long;
and, ere thou takest food and wine, let me prepare for thee the bath for
thy form, or the bath for thy feet. For as sleep to the young, is the
bath to the old."

Hilda shook her head.

"Bringer of sleep am I, and the baths I prepare are in the halls of
Valhalla. Offer not to the Vala the bath for mortal weariness, and the
wine and the food meet for human guests. Sit thee down, daughter of the
Dane, and thank thy new gods for the past that hath been thine. Not ours
is the present, and the future escapes from our dreams; but the past is
ours ever, and all eternity cannot revoke a single joy that the moment
hath known."

Then seating herself in Godwin's large chair, she leant over her
seid-staff, and was silent, as if absorbed in her thoughts.

"Githa," she said at last, "where is thy lord? I came to touch his hands
and to look on his brow."

"He hath gone forth into the mart, and my sons are from home; and Harold
comes hither, ere night, from his earldom."

A faint smile, as of triumph, broke over the lips of the Vala, and then
as suddenly yielded to an expression of great sadness.

"Githa," she said, slowly, "doubtless thou rememberest in thy young days
to have seen or heard of the terrible hell-maid Belsta?"

"Ay, ay," answered Githa shuddering; "I saw her once in gloomy weather,
driving before her herds of dark grey cattle. Ay, ay; and my father
beheld her ere his death, riding the air on a wolf, with a snake for a
bridle. Why askest thou?"

"Is it not strange," said Hilda, evading the question, "t