or she at him; but the gleam of the broken weapon he carried cut
for a single instant across her sight, and her hands hungered for it.

"A sword!" thought she. "Ay, but an arm to wield the sword. Nay, if I
had the sword it may be I could find an arm to wield it." She dropped
her chin on her breast, and brooded on the vanishing shape of the Red
Smith. "If I had been my fathers' son--oh!" cried she, shaken with new
dreams, "what would I not give to the man who would strike a blow for
our house?"

Then she recalled what day it was. A year of miracles and changes had
sped over her life; if she desired new miracles, this was the night to
ask them.

So close on midnight Proud Rosalind once more crept up to Rewell Wood;
and on its beechen skirts the white hart came to her. It came now as to
a friend, not to a stranger. And she threw her arm over its neck, and
they walked together. As they walked it lowered its noble antlers so
cunningly that not a twig snapped from the boughs; and its antlers were
as beautiful as the boughs with their branches and twigs, and to each
crown it had added not one, but two more crockets, so that now its
points were sixteen. Safe under its guard the maiden ventured into the
mysteries of the hour, and when they came to the mere the hart lay down
and she knelt beside it with her brow on its soft panting neck, and
thought awhile how she would shape her wish. And feeling the strength
of its sinews she said aloud, "Oh, champion among stags! were there a
champion among men to match you, I think even I could love him. Yet
love is not my prayer. I do not pray for myself." And then she stood
upright and stretched her hands towards the water and said again, less
in supplication than command:

"Spirit, you hear--I do not pray for myself. Of old it may be maidens
often came in sport or fear, to make a mid-summer pastime of their
love-dreams. Oh, Spirit! of love I ask nothing for myself. But if you
will send me a man to strike one blow in my name that is my fathers'
name, he may have of me what he will!"

Never so proudly yet had the Proud Rosalind held herself as when she
lifted her radiant face to the moon and sent her low clear call thrice
over the mystic waters. Gloriously she stood with arms extended, as
though she would give welcome to any hero stepping through the night to
consummate her wish. But none came. Only the subdued rustling that had
stirred the woods a year ago whispered out of the dark and