hildhood had left her, and a
high heart of good longing was ever before her, was an allurement of
love and far beyond any fooling such as that.

Now she said: "How thou lookest on me, dear Osberne, and thy face is
somewhat sober; is there aught that thou likest not in me? I will do
as thou biddest, and tell all the little there is to tell about me,
ere thou tellest me all the mickle thou hast to tell about thee."

He said, and still spake as if the words were somewhat hard to find:
"I look upon thee, Elfhild, because I love thee, and because thou hast
outgrown thy dearness of a year and a half agone and become a woman,
and I see thee so fair and lovely, that I fear for thee and me, that I
desire more than is my due, and that never shall we mend our
sundering; and that even what I have may be taken from me." She
smiled, yet somewhat faintly, and spake: "I call that ill said; yet
shalt thou not make me weep thereby, such joy as I have of the love in
thy words. But come, sit thou down, and I shall tell thee my tidings."

So they sat down as nigh unto the edge as they might; and Osberne
spake no more for that while, but looked and listened, and Elfhild
said: "Day by day I have come hither, sometimes sadder and sorrier
than at others, whiles with more hope, and whiles with less, whiles
also with none at all. Of that thou wottest already or may bethink
thee. Of tidings to call tidings the first is that my kinswoman, my
mother's sister, has changed her life: she died six months ago, and we
brought her to earth by the church of Allhallows the West, hard by the
place of the Cloven Mote. Needs must I say that, though she was the
last one of my kindred, the loss of her was no very grievous sorrow to
me, for ever she had heeded me little and loved me less, though she
used me not cruelly when I was little; and her burial was a stately
one as for a poor house in the West Dale. Now furthermore, as for the
carline who is the only one left to look after me, by my deeming she
doth love me, and moreover she hath belike more of a might than were
to be looked for of so old and frail-seeming a woman, and that besides
here mickle wisdom. Whereof hearken this, which is the second tidings
of note I have to tell thee. It is now some two months ago, when
summer was waning into autumn, that on an evening just after sunset we
were sitting after our wont in our house, which, though it be neither
grand nor great, is bigger than we need for us twain