ger.

"Know you any one that hath the like on his? If you only saw him you
could not choose but be proud of him; all the mothers in the street do
envy me; but I the wives; for thou comest not to us. My own Gerard, some
say thou art dead. But if thou wert dead, how could I be alive? Others
say that thou, whom I love so truly, art false. But this will I believe
from no lips but thine. My father loved thee well; and as he lay a-dying
he thought he saw thee on a great river, with thy face turned towards
thy Margaret, but sore disfigured. Is't so, perchance? Have cruel men
scarred thy sweet face? or hast thou lost one of thy precious limbs?
Why, then thou hast the more need of me, and I shall love thee not
worse, alas! thinkest thou a woman's love is light as a man's? but
better, than I did when I shed those few drops from my arm, not worth
the tears, thou didst shed for them; mindest thou? 'tis not so very long
agone, dear Gerard."

The letter continued in this strain, and concluded without a word of
reproach or doubt as to his faith and affection. Not that she was free
from most distressing doubts; but they were not certainties; and to show
them might turn the scale, and frighten him away from her with fear of
being scolded. And of this letter she made soft Luke the bearer.

So she was not an angel after all.

Luke mingled with the passengers of two boats, and could hear nothing of
Gerard Eliassoen. Nor did this surprise him.

He was more surprised when, at the third attempt, a black friar said
to him, somewhat severely, "And what would you with him you call Gerard
Eliassoen?"

"Why, father, if he is alive I have got a letter for him."

"Humph!" said Jerome. "I am sorry for it, However, the flesh is weak.
Well, my son, he you seek will be here by the next boat, or the next
boat after. And if he chooses to answer to that name--After all, I am
not the keeper of his conscience."

"Good father, one plain word, for Heaven's sake, This Gerard Eliassoen
of Tergou--is he alive?"

"Humph! Why, certes, he that went by that name is alive."

"Well, then, that is settled," said Luke drily. But the next moment he
found it necessary to run out of sight and blubber.

"Oh, why did the Lord make any women?" said he to himself. "I was
content with the world till I fell in love. Here his little finger is
more to her than my whole body, and he is not dead, And here I have got
to give him this." He looked at the letter and dashed i