sion or dream, so real that she did not
know which it was. And what it portended she could not say, for it was
wonderful altogether, and surely was good.

"I thought that a voice wakened me, calling me to look on somewhat; and
so I rose as I was bidden, and saw before me the most mighty and
comeliest man that could be thought of. Kinglike he was, though he had
no crown and was meanly clad, without brooch or bracelet that a king
should wear. But the wonder was that from his mouth came a bright shaft
of flame, as it were of a sunbeam, that lighted all the place, and on
his shoulder shone a cross of burning light as of red-hot gold, and I
knew that it was the mark of a mighty king.

"Then I heard the voice again, and I turned, and saw that it was an
angel who spoke to me, and his face was bright and kind.

"'Fear not, Goldberga,' he said, 'for this is your husband that shall
be. King's son and heir is he, as that token of the fiery cross shows.
More, also, it will betoken--that he shall reign in England and in
Denmark, a great king and mighty. And this you shall see, and with him
shall you reign as queen and well-loved lady.'

"So the voice ceased, and the angel was gone, and when I looked up there
was naught but the growing dawn across yon window, and the voice of the
thrush that sings outside."

Now the old nurse pondered over the dream for a while without speaking,
for she could not see what it might mean at first.

But at last she said, "It is a good dream surely, because of the angel
that spoke; but there seems only one way in which it can come to pass. A
prince must come for you from Denmark, for there he would reign by his
own right, and here he would do so by yours. Yet I have heard that the
Danish kings are most terrible heathen, worse than the Saxon kin, of
whom we know the worst now. Maybe that is why the angel told you to have
no fear. I mind Gunnar Kirkeban, and what he wrought on the churches and
Christian folk in Wales--in Gower on the Severn Sea, and on the holy
Dee--when I was young."

For both Goldberga and this old nurse of hers were Christian, as had
been Orwenna, Ethelwald's wife, her mother. It had been a great day for
them when the King of Kent had brought over his fair wife, Bertha, from
France, for she, too, was Christian, and had restored the ancient church
in the very castle where Goldberga was kept.

Now the princess went to sleep again, and woke refreshed; but all day
long the memory o