ed.

Dick privately considered the whole thing more or less of a nuisance, but
the candlelight touched Elaine's golden hair lovingly, and the glow from
the fire seemed to rest caressingly upon her face. All along, he saw a
clear resemblance between his Elaine and the lady of the book, also, more
keenly, a closer likeness between himself and the fool who rode at her
side.

When Harlan came to the song which the fool had written, and which he had
so shamelessly revised and read aloud at the table, Dick seriously
considered a private and permanent departure, like the nocturnal vanishing
of Mr. Perkins, without even a poem for farewell.

Elaine, lost in the story, was heedless of her surroundings. It was only
at the last chapter that she became conscious of self at all. Then,
suddenly, in her turn, she perceived a parallel, and quivered painfully
with a new emotion.

_"Some one, perchance," mused the Lady Elaine, "whose beauty my eyes alone
should perceive, whose valour only I should guess before there was need to
test it. Some one great of heart and clean of mind, in whose eyes there
should never be that which makes a woman ashamed. Some one fine-fibred and
strong-souled, not above tenderness when a maid was tired. One who should
make a shield of his love, to keep her not only from the great hurts but
from the little ones as well, and yet with whom she might fare onward,
shoulder to shoulder, as God meant mates should fare."_

Like the other Elaine, she saw who had served her secretly, asking for no
recognition; who had always kept watch over her so unobtrusively and
quietly that she never guessed it till now. Like many another woman,
Elaine had dreamed of her Prince as a paragon of beauty and perfection,
with unconscious vanity deeming such an one her true mate. Now her
story-book lover had gone for ever, and in his place was Dick;
sunny-hearted, mischievous, whistling, clear-eyed Dick, who had laughed
and joked with her all Summer, and now--must never know.

In a fierce agony of shame, she wondered if he had already guessed her
secret--if she had betrayed it to him before she was conscious of it
herself; if that was why he had been so kind. Harlan was reading the last
page, and Elaine shaded her face with her hand, determined, at all costs,
to avoid Dick, and to go away to-morrow, somewhere, anywhere.

_But Prince Bernard did not hear_, read Harlan, _nor see the outstretched
hand, for Elaine was in his arms for th