long
delight, with music and dancing and all pleasant things.

Eileen listened while he told these tales to her, till she began to long
to see his country; and her heart yearned for something brighter and
better than the sombre life she led by the shores of the dark lough; and
so when, after a time, the knight one day told her that he loved her,
she gave him her promise to go to his home with him and marry him.

She was very contented for a little while after she had promised to be
the knight's wife, and spent nearly all her time in talking to her lover
and in picturing to herself the new and beautiful things that she was
going to see. She was very happy, on the whole; though now and then, to
tell the truth, as time went on, she began to be a little puzzled and
surprised by certain things that the knight did, and certain odd habits
that he had; for, in fact, he had some very odd habits, indeed, and,
charming and handsome as he was, conducted himself occasionally in
really quite a singular way.

For instance, it was a curious fact that he never could bear the sight
of a dog; and if ever one came near him (and as there were a good many
dogs about the castle, it was quite impossible to keep them from coming
near him now and then) he would set his teeth, and rise slowly from his
seat, and begin to make a low hissing noise, craning his neck forward,
and swelling and rounding his back in such an extraordinary way that the
first time Eileen saw him doing it she thought he was going to have a
fit, and was quite alarmed.

"Oh, dear, I--I'm afraid you're ill!" she exclaimed, getting upon her
feet and feeling very uneasy.

"No, no, it's only--it's only--the dog," gasped the knight, gripping his
seat with both hands, as if it needed the greatest effort to keep
himself still. "Hiss--s--s--s! I've such a terrible dislike to dogs.
It's--it's in my family," said the poor young man; and he could not
recover his composure at all till the little animal that had disturbed
him was carried away.

Then he had such a strange fashion of amusing himself in his own room
where he slept. It was a spacious room, hung all round with arras; and
often, after the household had gone to bed, those who slept nearest to
the knight were awakened out of their sleep by the noise he made in
running up and down, and here and there; scudding about over the floor,
and even--as far as could be guessed by the sounds--clambering up the
walls, just as though,