And she did smile, but it was a smile of tears, gleaming on her beautiful face as a sunny beam through a glistening spray.  One by one the cuirass and shoulder-pieces, the greaves and gauntlets, the gorget and brassards, the joints of which were so beautifully burnished that they shone as mirrors, and so flexible every limb had its free use, enveloped those manly forms.  Their swords once again girt to their sides, and once more keeling, the king descended from his throne, and alternately dubbed them knight in the name of God, St. Michael, and St. George.

“Be faithful, brave, and hardy, youthful cavaliers,” he said; “true to the country which claims ye, to the monarch ye have sworn to serve, to the knight from whose sword ye have received the honor ye have craved.  Remember, ’tis not the tournay nor the tilted field in which ye will gain renown.  For your country let your swords be drawn; against her foes reap laurels.  Sir Nigel, ’tis thine to retain unsullied the name thou bearest, to let the Bruce be glorified in thee.  And thou, Sir Alan, ’tis thine to earn a name—­in very truth, to win thy golden spurs; to prove we do no unwise deed, forgetting thy early years, to do honor to thy mother’s son.”

Lightly and eagerly the new-made knights sprung to their feet, the very clang of their glittering armor ringing gratefully and rejoicingly in their ears.  Their gallant steeds, barded and richly caparisoned, held by their esquires, stood neighing and pawing at the foot of the steps leading from the oaken doors.

Without touching the stirrup, both sprung at the same instant in their saddles; the helmet, with its long graceful plume, was quickly donned; the lance and shield received; the pennon adorning the iron head of each lowered a moment in honor to their sovereign, then waved gayly in air, and then each lance was laid in rest; a trumpet sounded, and onward darted the fiery youths thrice round the lists, displaying a skill and courage in horsemanship which was hailed with repeated shouts of applause.  But on the tournay and the banquet which succeeded the ceremony we have described we may not linger, but pass rapidly on to a later period of the same evening.

Sir Nigel and his beautiful betrothed had withdrawn a while from the glittering scene around them; they had done their part in the graceful dance, and now they sought the comparative solitude and stillness of the flower-gemmed terrace, on which the ball-room opened, to speak unreservedly the thoughts which had filled each heart; perchance there were some yet veiled, for the vision of the preceding night, the strange, incongruous fancies it had engendered in the youthful warrior, a solemn vow had buried deep in his own soul, and not even to Agnes, to whom his heart was wont to be revealed, might such thoughts find words; and she shrunk in timidity from avowing the inquietude of her own simple heart, and thus it was that each, for the sake of the other, spoke hopefully and cheeringly, and gayly, until at length they were but conscious of mutual and devoted love—­the darkening mists of the future lost in the radiance of the present sun.