ather's side--a race none need blush to
own, and received but recently knighthood from the hands of Robert
of Normandy, after the battle of Dorylaeum; but by my mother's side
I am of English blood."

"And thou blushest not to own it?"

"Why should I? Norman and English have long been peacefully united
on my father's lands, and we know no distinction."

"Such, I have heard, is not yet everywhere the case in thine
island; but thou hast not told me thy name."

"Edward of Aescendune, son of Etienne, lord of Aescendune in
England, and Malville in Normandy."

The stranger started as if an arrow had suddenly pierced him. The
young knight looked on him with amazement.

"A fit to which I am subject--it is nothing," said he, regaining
his composure and drinking a goblet of wine. "May I ask thy
mother's name? Thou saidst she was English."

"Edith, daughter of Edmund, the English lord of Aescendune, and
Winifred his wife."

The knight was still evidently unwell--a deadly pallor sat on his
face.

"I fear me thou art hurt."

"Nay, my son; one who like myself has lain for weeks in unwholesome
caverns, with but scanty fare sometimes, contracts a tendency to
this kind of seizure. It will pass away."

"Art thou interested in England? Perhaps thyself English by birth?"

"I have said I have no country," replied he, sadly.

The young lord of Aescendune remembered his designation of himself
as an exile, and forbore to inquire, lest he should unawares renew
some ancient wound.

The manner in which the knight addressed his young companion had
something in it of tender interest; his voice sounded like that of
one who spake with emotion forcibly suppressed.

"Thy mother is yet living?" said he, with forced calmness.

"She mourns our absence in the halls of Aescendune, yet she could
not grudge us to the Cross, and methinks she finds consolation in
many a holy deed of mercy and charity."

"Hast thou any brethren, or art thou her only child?"

"Nay, we are four in number--two boys and two girls. My brother
Hugh is destined to be the future lord of Malville, and I, if I
survive, shall inherit Aescendune."

"Thy mother, my boy, must miss thee sadly. How bore she the pain of
separation?"

"Religion came to her aid, and does still. I can fancy her each
morning as she kneels before the altar of St. Wilfred, and wearies
heaven with prayer for her absent lord and her boy, and perhaps
those prayers sent thee to my deliverance th