As the lady thus attended advanced, all rose to pay the respect due to her sex and station.

“Behold, Lady Geraldine,” said the knight, presenting to her the soldier, “the valiant man to whom I once owed my life.”

“He is very welcome,” replied the lady, in an accent just foreign enough to impart a strange interest to her speech.  “The savior of my cousin’s life is very welcome.”

The embarrassed soldier, confounded at the presence of one who looked to him like a superior being, could find no words to return to her greeting, and only bowed low to conceal his confusion.

“I have heard, Sir Christopher,” she continued, “speak of the daring feat of arms whereby he was rescued from the foe, and longed to behold his valorous deliverer to return my soul-felt thanks.  Be seated, most welcome gentlemen.  And thou, Master Arundel, I trust, hast received intelligence from Boston which will chase away the cloud that sometimes gathers on thy brow.”

“Honored madam,” answered the young man, in the inflated style of gallantry which the custom of high-bred society not only permitted but enjoined, “when the beautiful majesty of the heavenly sun appears, clouds have no place above the horizon, but fly away, chased by his golden shafts.”

“Would that I had the power,” said the lady, “as the beneficent sun dispels the clouds, so to drive away all sorrow and disappointment.  There is no grief-laden heart that should not be cheered.”

“Recount now, Philip, to Lady Geraldine, the adventure which causes the colony to lose a valiant soldier, and me to gain for our solitude an old friend and companion in arms,” said the knight.

The soldier, upon being thus addressed, found his voice, and narrated to the lady the circumstances of his enforced departure from Boston.  She listened with an appearance of interest, and upon its conclusion spoke a few words expressive of her sorrow for his imprisonment, and of congratulation for the knight, to whom she hoped he would be for the future attached.

“I do begin to consider my banishment as no misfortune,” said the soldier, whose confidence in himself was now restored.  “The labor of my forge and exposure of life for folk who know not how to excuse a hasty word or two, are well exchanged for the service of so noble a master and mistress.”

“Be sure, thou shalt not rust like a sheathed sword,” said the knight, “and it shall go hard, but I will find for thee employment to content an undegenerate spirit.  But, Lady Geraldine, while we gain one to our company, we lose (only for a short time, I hope) another.  Master Arundel purposes to leave our solitude to-morrow.”

The lady looked inquiringly at the young man, who answered with a blush: 

“A message brought by Philip doth constrain my departure.”

“A sweet constraint,” said the knight, smiling.  “Fear not, Master Arundel, that Lady Geraldine will blame thee for obeying an impulse as natural as the love of a bee for a flower.  The diamond eyes of Mistress Eveline would furnish apology for a deeper crime.”