ound means and wit
to send him up a rope. There 'twas dangling from his prison, and our
Giles went up it. When first I saw it hang, I said, 'This is glamour.'
But when the frank lass's arms came round me, and her bosom' did beat
on mine, and her cheeks wet, then said I, ''Tis not glamour: 'tis love.'
For she is not like me, but lusty and able; and, dear heart, even I,
poor frail creature, do feel sometimes as I could move the world for
them I love: I love you, mother. And she loves Gerard."

"God bless her for't! God bless her!"

"But

"But what, lamb?"

"Her love, is it for very certain honest? 'Tis most strange; but that
very thing, which hath warmed your heart, hath somewhat cooled mine
towards her; poor soul. She is no wife, you know, mother, when all is
done."

"Humph! They have stood at the altar together."

"Ay, but they went as they came, maid and bachelor."

"The parson, saith he so?"

"Nay, for that I know not."

"Then I'll take no man's word but his in such a tangled skein."
After some reflection she added, "Natheless art right, girl; I'll to
Sevenbergen alone. A wife I am but not a slave. We are all in the dark
here. And she holds the clue. I must question her, and no one by; least
of all you. I'll not take any lily to a house Wi' a spot, no, not to a
palace o' gold and silver."

The more Catherine pondered this conversation, the more she felt drawn
towards Margaret, and moreover "she was all agog" with curiosity, a
potent passion with us all, and nearly omnipotent with those who like
Catherine, do not slake it with reading. At last, one fine day, after
dinner, she whispered to Kate, "Keep the house from going to pieces, an
ye can;" and donned her best kirtle and hood, and her scarlet clocked
hose and her new shoes, and trudged briskly off to Sevenbergen,
troubling no man's mule.

When she got there she inquired where Margaret Brandt lived. The first
person she asked shook his head, and said--"The name is strange to me."
She went a little farther and asked a girl of about fifteen who was
standing at a door. "Father," said the girl, speaking into the house,
"here is another after that magician's daughter." The man came out and
told Catherine Peter Brandt's cottage was just outside the town on the
east side. "You may see the chimney hence;" and he pointed it out to
her. "But you will not find them there, neither father nor daughter;
they have left the town this week, bless you."

"Say not so,