bably, at that time, she considers as at all likely to
be hers.

She certainly enjoyed, upon her first removal from Bannerworth Hall,
greater serenity of mind than she had done there; but, as we have
already remarked of her, the more her mind was withdrawn, by change of
scene, from the horrible considerations which the attack of the vampyre
had forced upon her, the more she reverted to the fate of Charles
Holland, which was still shrouded in so much gloom.

She would sit and converse with her mother upon that subject until she
worked up her feelings to a most uncomfortable pitch of excitement, and
then Mrs. Bannerworth would get her younger brother to join them, who
would occasionally read to her some compositions of his own, or of some
favourite writer whom he thought would amuse her.

[Illustration]

It was on the very evening when Sir Francis Varney had made up his mind
to release Charles Holland, that young Bannerworth read to his sister
and his mother the following little chivalric incident, which he told
them he had himself collated from authentic sources:--

"The knight with the green shield," exclaimed one of a party of
men-at-arms, who were drinking together at an ancient hostel, not far
from Shrewsbury--"the knight with the green shield is as good a knight
as ever buckled on a sword, or wore spurs."--"Then how comes it he is
not one of the victors in the day's tournament?" exclaimed another.--"By
the bones of Alfred!" said a third, "a man must be judged of by his
deserts, and not by the partiality of his friends. That's my opinion,
friends."--"And mine, too," said another.

"That is all very true, and my opinion would go with yours, too; but not
in this instance. Though you may accuse me of partiality, yet I am not
so; for I have seen some of the victors of to-day by no means forward in
the press of battle-men who, I will not say feared danger, but who liked
it not so well but they avoided it as much as possible."

"Ay, marry, and so have I. The reason is, 'tis much easier to face a
blunted lance, than one with a spear-head; and a man may practise the
one and thrive in it, but not the other; for the best lance in the
tournament is not always the best arm in the battle."

"And that is the reason of my saying the knight with the green shield
was a good knight. I have seen him in the midst of the melee, when men
and horses have been hurled to the ground by the shock; there he has
behaved himself like a b