lso by Emma
of Normandy."

Then the old man snarled as a wolf does whose bone has been seized.
"Lord of Ivarsdale, you act in the thoughtless way of youth. I was
bringing the matter gently--"

But the young man accomplished his purpose in spite of the elder. He did
not address the King's wife--indeed, he refrained even from looking at
her--but he spoke swiftly to the dark-haired girl who stood beside the
seat. "Randalin, I beg you to tell your lady that Elfgiva Emma, who is
Ethelred's widow and the Lady of Normandy, arrives at Dover to-morrow to
be made Queen of the English."

As all expected, the Lady of Northampton started up shrieking defiance,
screaming that it should not be so, that the King was her husband and
the soldiers would support her if the monks would not, that he was hers,
hers,-and more to that effect, until the plunging words ran into each
other and tears and laughter blotted out the last semblance of speech.
That she would end by swooning or attacking them with her hands those
who knew her best felt sure, and maids and pages crept out of her reach
as hunters stand off from a wounded boar. But at the point where her
voice gave out and she whirled to do one or perhaps both of these, her
eyes fell on the house-door, and her expression changed from rage to
amazement and from amazement to horror. Catching Randalin's arm in fear,
not anger, she began to gasp over and over the name of Teboen the nurse.

Those whose glance had not followed hers, thought her mad and shrank
farther; but the eyes of those who saw what she did reflected her look.
In the doorway the British woman was standing, wagging her head in time
to a silly quavering song that she was singing with lips so distorted
as to be almost unrecognizable. Her once florid face was ashen gray, and
now as she quitted the door post and came toward them she reeled in
her \walk, stumbling over stones and groping blindly with her huge bony
hands. But still she kept on singing, with twisted lips that strove to
simper, and once she tried to sway her ungainly body into an uncouth
dancing-step that brought her floundering to her knees.

"A devil has possession of her," Elfgiva shrieked. "Take her out of my
sight, or I shall go mad! Take her away--take her away!" Shrieking in
wildest terror she fled before her, and for a moment the garden seemed
given over to a grotesque game of blind-man's buff as women and boys
scattered with renewed screaming at each appro