“Wendot, Wendot. don’t you know me?”

The young man started and raised his eyes towards the speaker.  So far, he had only been aware that there were a number of persons collected at the upper end of the long gallery.  Now he found himself confronted by a pair of eager, dancing eyes, as soft and dark as those of a forest deer, whilst two slim hands were held out to him, and a silvery voice cried softly and playfully: 

“O Wendot, Wendot, to think you have forgotten!”

“Lady Gertrude!”

“Ah, I am glad you have not forgotten, though methinks I have changed more than you these past years.  I should have known you anywhere.  But come, Wendot; I would present you to my friends and companions, who would fain be acquainted with you.  They know how you saved my life that day, I have told the tale so oft.

“Let me present you first to our sweetest Lady Eleanor, our great king’s eldest daughter.  You will love her, I know —­ none can help it.  And she lets me call myself her sister.”

Young things have a wonderful faculty of growing intimate in a very brief space, and the formalities of those simpler times were not excessive, especially away from the trammels of the court.  In ten minutes’ time Wendot and his brother had grasped the names and rank of all those to whom they had been presented, and were joining in the eager talk with ease and with enjoyment.  Joanna stood beside Wendot, listening, with unfeigned interest, to his answers respecting himself and those near and dear to him; whilst Alphonso had drawn Griffeth to the embrasure of a window, and was looking up into his face as they compared notes and exchanged ideas.  It seemed from the first as though a strong link formed itself between those two.

“Your brothers would not come.  Was that fear or shame or pride?” asked Joanna, with a laughing look into Wendot’s flushed face.  “Nay, think not that we would compel any to visit us who do it not willingly.  Gertrude has prepared us to find your brothers different from you.  Methinks she marvelled somewhat that they had come hither at all with their submission.”

Wendot hesitated, and the flush deepened on his face; but he was too young to have learned the lesson of reticence, and there was something in the free atmosphere of this place which prompted him to frankness.

“I myself was surprised at it,” he said.  “Llewelyn and Howel have not been friendly in their dealings with the English so far, and we knew they aided Llewelyn of North Wales in the revolt which has been lately quelled.  But since our parents died we have seen but little of them.  They became joint owners of the commot of Iscennen, and removed from Dynevor to the castle of Carregcennen in their own territory, and until we met them some days since in company with our kinsman Meredith ap Hes, coming to tender their homage, as we ourselves are about to do, we knew not what to think of them or what action they would take.”