looking up at her face with an expression of tender love and sympathy. She was a girl of seventeen, some four years younger than her lady, and wore the Saxon headrail; the little rings of hair which escaped from its close cover were of Saxon gold, while her pale blue robe was made in the fashion of that nation, full and flowing, with large, hanging sleeves. The girdle with which it was bound was ornamented with jewels, and the hems were edged with fur. Her face was less animated and striking than that of the noble Norman, but had a winsome beauty of its own, the blue eyes frank and affectionate, and the rounded features not wanting in character. 

 An embroidery frame stood before them; for though Eadgyth of Norwich had lived in a Norman household since she was ten, she had perseveringly acquired the special accomplishment of her countrywomen in spite of difficulties, and Emma fitfully worked at it also under her guidance. 

 Eadgyth was a cousin in some sort, second or third, perhaps, to Harold Godwinsson, and made it a point of honour to keep his memory green, though she had grown to love dearly the generous Norman maiden, who treated her more as a sister than a dependent. 

 Many relatives of Harold had property in Norwich, and when Ralph de Guader had received his earldom of Norfolk and Suffolk, which Harold's death on the field of Senlac had rendered vacant, he had taken pity on the forlorn condition of the little damsel, whose male relatives had been slain in the contest, and who was thus left without protection from the insolent conquerors. De Guader had been amused by the patriotic defiance the bereaved maiden of ten had flung at him, rating him as a renegade and a murderer, with other terms of equal politeness which had sounded oddly from her flower-like mouth, and perhaps his conscience smote him, and told him they were not untrue. Her courage moved his admiration and generosity, and, having no women-folk of his own to whom he could confide her, he had induced William Fitzosbern the Norman Earl of Hereford, to take her into his castle as a playmate and lady-in-waiting for his daughter Emma. So began a companionship which was to endure for their lives. 

 The tide of sad reflection was flooding Emma's heart to the brim. Since the cruel day on which the king's mandate had been received, the subject of her interrupted betrothal had been buried in dead silence. Her brother and guardian, the young Earl of Hereford, had set out on a journey a day or two later, but had left even his wife in ignorance of its aim and direction. Emma, on her own part, had shrunk from 

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