ed Alicia. "Then well said, lion-driver!"

"Who is this?" asked the duke.

"A prisoner of Sir Richard's," answered Lord Foxham; "Mistress Alicia
Risingham."

"See that she be married to a sure man," said the duke.

"I had thought of my kinsman, Hamley, an it like your grace," returned
Lord Foxham. "He hath well served the cause."

"It likes me well," said Richard. "Let them be wedded speedily. Say,
fair maid, will you wed?"

"My lord duke," said Alicia, "so as the man is straight--" And there, in
a perfect consternation, the voice died on her tongue.

"He is straight, my mistress," replied Richard, calmly. "I am the only
crookback of my party; we are else passably well shapen. Ladies, and
you, my lord," he added, with a sudden change to grave courtesy, "judge
me not too churlish if I leave you. A captain, in the time of war, hath
not the ordering of his hours."

And with a very handsome salutation he passed on, followed by his
officers.

"Alack," cried Alicia, "I am shent!"

"Ye know him not," replied Lord Foxham. "It is but a trifle; he hath
already clean forgot your words."

"He is, then, the very flower of knighthood," said Alicia.

"Nay, he but mindeth other things," returned Lord Foxham. "Tarry we no
more."

In the chancel they found Dick waiting, attended by a few young men; and
there were he and Joan united. When they came forth again, happy and yet
serious, into the frosty air and sunlight, the long files of the army
were already winding forward up the road; already the Duke of
Gloucester's banner was unfolded and began to move from before the abbey
in a clump of spears; and behind it, girt by steel-clad knights, the
bold, black-hearted, and ambitious hunchback moved on towards his brief
kingdom and his lasting infamy. But the wedding party turned upon the
other side, and sat down, with sober merriment, to breakfast. The father
cellarer attended on their wants, and sat with them at table. Hamley,
all jealousy forgotten, began to ply the nowise loth Alicia with
courtship. And there, amid the sounding of tuckets and the clash of
armoured soldiery and horses continually moving forth, Dick and Joan sat
side by side, tenderly held hands, and looked, with ever growing
affection, in each other's eyes.

Thenceforth the dust and blood of that unruly epoch passed them by. They
dwelt apart from alarms in the green forest where their love began.

Two old men in the meanwhile enjoyed pensions in great pros