younger
still," she said, and her voice was like the tolling of sweet bells
across the autumn fields, "for then age will be neither here nor there!"

Now she was again the young Countess among her maidens, and what had
passed might have been a dream.

Yet as she of the silver coronet passed slowly into a sweet sleep, where
bees hummed and soft chanting from the chapel mourned the dead, she
caught the hand of her who stood by the bed and questioned her.

"Tell me, mother and sister," she whispered, "why in my lessons, I must
ever find the truth under such strange forms? Why do you who must teach
me wear the garments of another age, another country?"

Now a trouble came over the face of the Countess and she shivered in the
moonlight.

"Ask me not, sister and daughter--and yet I must answer if thou ask me,
who wearest a crown. I cannot tell why this is laid upon me--although it
is well known to be so. Nor have any but a wonderful and holy few
learned in any other wise. I cannot tell ... sometimes I think that
though the lessons were set in each dish and coat and friendly hand of
everyday--as Our Lady knows they are, for the matter of that!--you
cannot read them, out there. They are too plain, perhaps. So all must be
put before the eyes too full for sight in a manner (as one should call
it) quaint. Though truly one thing has never been more quaint than
another! But I do not speak clearly.... Good night, my sister."

Now she heard a sob and knew it was from young Gildres.

"Shall I never see her again, then, my lady?" he whispered.

"Why, that is as may be, Gildres," said the Countess, "but I do think
so. It comes to me that when this my sister sets forth she shall pass
through here, and thou shalt accompany her farther on. Do then thy
service here the more diligently, as in the hope of it."

"Madam, I will," said he joyfully, and she,

"Now soothe her hand, Alys, with me, for she should be sleeping now."

Then they took each a hand and stroked it, and she lost herself in
sleep, dreamless, save for the winter moonlight and the chanting and the
hum of bees.

When she woke her hand was still held, but very firmly, and the humming
was seen to be the revolving of light discs under their dome of glass.

"Ah! Now we have a steady pulse," said the doctor, "and you--too dear a
friend to lose by your own folly!--I shall not scold you yet. But what a
fright to give me! A little more and you would have found your Lethe