le, theowes and swineherds passed to and fro:--in the
atrium, men of a higher class, half-armed, were, some drinking, some at
dice, some playing with huge hounds, or caressing the hawks that stood
grave and solemn on their perches.

The lararium was deserted; the gynoecium was still, as in the Roman time,
the favoured apartment of the female portion of the household, and indeed
bore the same name [8], and with the group there assembled we have now to
do.

The appliances of the chamber showed the rank and wealth of the owner. At
that period the domestic luxury of the rich was infinitely greater than
has been generally supposed. The industry of the women decorated wall
and furniture with needlework and hangings: and as a thegn forfeited his
rank if he lost his lands, so the higher orders of an aristocracy rather
of wealth than birth had, usually, a certain portion of superfluous
riches, which served to flow towards the bazaars of the East and the
nearer markets of Flanders and Saracenic Spain.

In this room the walls were draped with silken hangings richly
embroidered. The single window was glazed with a dull grey glass [9]. On
a beaufet were ranged horns tipped with silver, and a few vessels of pure
gold. A small circular table in the centre was supported by symbolical
monsters quaintly carved. At one side of the wall, on a long settle,
some half-a-dozen handmaids were employed in spinning; remote from them,
and near the window, sat a woman advanced in years, and of a mien and
aspect singularly majestic. Upon a small tripod before her was a Runic
manuscript, and an inkstand of elegant form, with a silver graphium, or
pen. At her feet reclined a girl somewhat about the age of sixteen, her
long hair parted across her forehead and falling far down her shoulders.
Her dress was a linen under-tunic, with long sleeves, rising high to the
throat, and without one of the modern artificial restraints of the shape,
the simple belt sufficed to show the slender proportions and delicate
outline of the wearer. The colour of the dress was of the purest white,
but its hems, or borders, were richly embroidered. This girl's beauty
was something marvellous. In a land proverbial for fair women, it had
already obtained her the name of "the fair." In that beauty were
blended, not as yet without a struggle for mastery, the two expressions
seldom united in one countenance, the soft and the noble; indeed in the
whole aspect there was th