r hair straight and
mouse-coloured instead of wavy and golden.

Even La Beale Isoud was a blonde, and La Beale Isoud, as she had
recently discovered, was one of the Romantic Queens of all time. She
knew this fact on the authority of grandpa, who was enormously wise.
Grandpa said that the beauteous lady was a heroine in all languages,
and her name was spelled Iseult, and Yseult, and Isolde, and other queer
ways; but in "The Romance of King Arthur" it was spelled La Beale Isoud.
"The Romance of King Arthur" was a fascinating book, and Missy was
amazed that, up to this very summer, she had passed by the rather
ponderous volume, which was kept on the top shelf of the "secretary," as
uninteresting-looking. Uninteresting!

It was "The Romance of King Arthur" that, this July afternoon, lay open
on Missy's lap while she minded the baby in the summerhouse. Already
she knew by heart its "deep" and complicated story, and, now, she
was re-reading the part which told of Sir Tristram de Liones and
his ill-fated love for La Beale Isoud. It was all very sad, yet very
beautiful.

Sir Tristram was a "worshipful knight" and a "harper passing all other."
He got wounded, and his uncle, King Mark, "let purvey a fair vessel,
well victualled," and sent him to Ireland to be healed. There the Irish
King's daughter, La Beale Isoud, "the fairest maid and lady in the
world," nursed him back to health, while Sir Tristram "learned her to
harp."

That last was an odd expression. In Cherryvale it would be considered
bad grammar; but, evidently, grammar rules were different in olden
times. The unusual phraseology of the whole narrative fascinated Missy;
even when you could hardly understand it, it was--inspiring. Yes, that
was the word. In inspiring! That was because it was the true language of
Romance. The language of Love... Missy's thoughts drifted off to ponder
the kind of language the army officer used to Miss Smith; Uncle Charlie
to Aunt Isabel...

She came back to the tale of La Beale Isoud.

Alas! true love must ever suffer at the hands of might. For the harper's
uncle, old King Mark himself, decided to marry La Beale Isoud; and he
ordered poor Sir Tristram personally to escort her from Ireland. And
Isoud's mother entrusted to two servants a magical drink which they
should give Isoud and King Mark on their wedding-day, so that the
married pair "either should love the other the days of their life."

But, Tristram and La Beale Isoud found