an scarce bring my mind to understand
that this great honor hath indeed been mine."

"By the Virgin of Rennes! you have given me cause to be very certain of
it," said Du Guesclin, with a gleam of his broad white teeth.

"And perhaps, most honored sir, it would please you to continue the
debate. Perhaps you would condescend to go farther into the matter.
God He knows that I am unworthy of such honor, yet I can show my
four-and-sixty quarterings, and I have been present at some bickerings
and scufflings during these twenty years."

"Your fame is very well known to me, and I shall ask my lady to enter
your name upon my tablets," said Sir Bertrand. "There are many who wish
to advance themselves, and who bide their turn, for I refuse no man who
comes on such an errand. At present it may not be, for mine arm is stiff
from this small touch, and I would fain do you full honor when we cross
swords again. Come in with me, and let your squires come also, that my
sweet spouse, the Lady Tiphaine, may say that she hath seen so famed and
gentle a knight."

Into the chamber they went in all peace and concord, where the Lady
Tiphaine sat like queen on throne for each in turn to be presented to
her. Sooth to say, the stout heart of Sir Nigel, which cared little for
the wrath of her lion-like spouse, was somewhat shaken by the calm, cold
face of this stately dame, for twenty years of camp-life had left him
more at ease in the lists than in a lady's boudoir. He bethought him,
too, as he looked at her set lips and deep-set questioning eyes, that he
had heard strange tales of this same Lady Tiphaine du Guesclin. Was
it not she who was said to lay hands upon the sick and raise them from
their couches when the leeches had spent their last nostrums? Had she
not forecast the future, and were there not times when in the loneliness
of her chamber she was heard to hold converse with some being upon whom
mortal eye never rested--some dark familiar who passed where doors were
barred and windows high? Sir Nigel sunk his eye and marked a cross on
the side of his leg as he greeted this dangerous dame, and yet ere
five minutes had passed he was hers, and not he only but his two young
squires as well. The mind had gone out of them, and they could but look
at this woman and listen to the words which fell from her lips--words
which thrilled through their nerves and stirred their souls like the
battle-call of a bugle.

Often in peaceful after-days was A