id Christopher.

But therewith he fell silent and knit his brow, as though he were
thinking of some knotty point: but in a while his face cleared, and he
said: "If I durst, I would ask thee thy name, and what thou art?"

"As to my name," said she, "I will not tell it thee as now. As to what I
am, I am a poor prisoner; and much have I been grieved and tormented,
so that my body hath been but a thing whereby I might suffer anguish.
Something else am I, but I may not tell thee what as yet."

He looked on her long, and then arose and went his way along the very
track of their footsteps, and he took the horse and brought him back to
the thorn, and stood by the lady and reddened, and said: "I must tell
thee what I have been doing these last minutes."

"Yea," said she, looking at him wonderingly, "hast thou not been
fetching my horse to me?"

"So it is," said he; "but something else also. Ask me, or I cannot tell
thee."

She laughed, and said: "What else, fair sir?"

Said he: "Ask me what, or I cannot tell thee."

"Well, what, then?" said she.

He answered, stammering and blushing: "I have been looking at thy foot
prints, whereby thou camest up from the water, to see what new and
fairer blossoms have come up in the meadow where thy feet were set e'en
now."

She answered him nothing, and he held his peace. But in a while she
said: "If thou wouldst have us come to thine house, thou shalt lead
us thither now." And therewith she took her foot-gear from out of her
girdle, as if she would do it on, and he turned his face away, but
sighed therewith. Then she reddened and put them back again, and rose
up lightly, and said: "I will go afoot; and wilt thou lead the horse for
me?"

So did he, and led her by all the softest and most flowery ways, turning
about the end of a spur of the little hill that came close to the water,
and going close to the lip of the river. And when they had thus turned
about the hill there was a somewhat wider vale before them, grassy
and fair, and on a knoll, not far from the water, a long frame-house
thatched with reed.

Then said Christopher: "Lady, this is now Littledale, and yonder the
house thereof."

She said quietly: "Lovely is the dale, and fair the house by seeming,
and I would that they may be happy that dwell therein!"

Said Christopher: "Wilt thou not speak that blessing within the house as
without?"

"Fain were I thereof," she said. And therewith they came into the garth,
where