“Very good,” said the friar.     

       “It is not very good,” said the baron, “for I cannot get her to say so.”      

       “I fear,” said Sir Ralph, “the young lady must be much distressed and discomposed.”      

       “Not a whit, sir,” said the baron. “She is, as usual, in a most provoking imperturbability, and contradicts me so smilingly that it would enrage you to see her.”      

       “I had hoped,” said Sir Ralph, “that I might have seen her, to make my excuse in person for the hard necessity of my duty.”      

       He had scarcely spoken, when the door opened, and the lady made her appearance.     

  

       CHAPTER IV     

      Are you mad, or what are you, that you squeak out your catches without mitigation or remorse of voice?      —Twelfth Night. 

       Matilda, not dreaming of visitors, tripped into the apartment in a dress of forest green, with a small quiver by her side, and a bow and arrow in her hand. Her hair, black and glossy as the raven’s wing, curled like wandering clusters of dark ripe grapes under the edge of her round bonnet; and a plume of black feathers fell back negligently above it, with an almost horizontal inclination, that seemed the habitual effect of rapid motion against the wind. Her black eyes sparkled like sunbeams on a river:       a clear, deep, liquid radiance, the reflection of ethereal fire,—tempered, not subdued, in the medium of its living and gentle mirror. Her lips were half opened to speak as she entered the apartment; and with a smile of recognition to the friar, and a courtesy to the stranger knight, she approached the baron and said, “You are late at your breakfast, father.”      

       “I am not at breakfast,” said the baron. “I have been at supper: my last night’s supper; for I had none.”      

       “I am sorry,” said Matilda, “you should have gone to bed supperless.”      

       “I did not go to bed supperless,” said the baron: “I did not go to bed at all: and 

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