but I must even overlook the casket, in the value of the liquid gem it encircles." "Said you the bridegroom of the princess Agatha, my lord De Carteny?" asked De Garennes. "I pray you who may he

be ?"

"The daughter of William is to be queen of Gallicia," replied the guest: "men say that the royal ladye favours not the alliance, but that will avail her little." "Poor ladye!" ejaculated the rough but honest Gaul, "I pity her; she is young and gentle, and withal heavy of heart."

"Marry, I doubt not that such a haughty bridal will ease her of her sorrowing," re

plied De Carteny; "and I would wage this cup of wine, that ere she has been wedded to royalty yet many weeks, she will be blithe and light of mood as the dame of Northumberland."

"It may be so," said De Garennes: “ I am ill read in the moods of women; but I have heard that they are fickle and wayward, and hold it not likely that I shall tempt their scorn."

As the Gaul spoke, De Carteny rose, and, with arms folded on his breast, traversed the hall. He was ill-knit and worse featured; but there was an expression in the coal-black eye that lit his swarthy countenance, which saved him from the imputation of ugliness; his brow had a peculiar frown, and its lines contracted, with a density which seemed to mock at future placidity of feature: but Auffray De Carteny, in an hour of festivity, could disentangle the complicated lines of passion, and wear a look of even feminine smoothness; still the dark frown and the wild eye-flash rose suddenly on the slightest impulse of anger, and no gaze loved to dwell on his countenance, until they had again passed away: his hair had once been of the deepest, dullest black; but it was now slightly checkered with grey; yet it bore less the tint of age than passion, and none, to look on the face of the noble, had judged otherwise: he was tall; but Nature, when she yielded to him length of limb, denied him the breadth of shoulder,

and expansion of chest, which befitted his amplitude of stature, and his figure was gaunt and unsightly: his lip, which in ordinary hours wore a doubtful and displeasing smile, was of a dull blue tint, partly the effect of intemperance, and partly from the swarthiness of his complexion: his gait was awkward and unseemly, and his dress was ill conceived, and worse adjusted. But De Garennes was as reckless of the person of De Carteny, as the lord Auffray himself appeared to be, at that moment, of all around him, for he continued to pace the floor with huge and ungainly strides, pausing however at intervals to drain the capacious goblet, which was as speedily replenished by an attendant.

Meanwhile, the swordsman of the lord De Garennes cleared wide space towards the castle of Sarum, signed the holy cross, and muttered a pater and an ave with more haste than piety, as he passed the frowning pile of Stanhengist, and soon gained admittance to the hospitable hall

of De Rossenville. The knight and his many guests were about to partake the banquet, which was profusely spread for them, and the lady Arela was standing a small space apart, conversing with a young noble, when the messenger of death approached his Gallic guest.

A

"And what seek you with me, swordsman ?" demanded De Lacy, as he entered.

The follower of De Garennes announced his errand. The blood fled from the cheek of the lady of Rossenville, and she leant for a moment faintly on the young noble for support.

Why this is meet advisement!" cried the lord Gualtier; " and I will even quit the towers of Sarum blithely to obey the summons: yet ere I go," he added, advancing towards the board, and grasping a cup of wine, "I will at least empty a goblet to the departure of Northumberland. But wherefore pales the cheek of the fair ladye of Rossenville ?" he asked, as his flashing eye fell on the deathly coun

tenance of the maiden; and he modulated his voice to a whisper of the most gentle murmuring, as, taking her hand, he repeated "why pales that cheek, which, of its wont, glows like the ruddy morning?"

"It pales, my lord," replied the lady Arela, rallying, and withdrawing, with a thrill of horror, the hand which he had taken, "to hear the words of death spoken with the light smile and tone of joy-it pales to see the wine-cup filled for so dark a pledge."

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Nay then, gentlest ladye," said De Lacy, as he dashed the red wine on the floor of the hall, and replaced the empty goblet on the board, "if you so will it, I will not drain the wine-cup, and this lip shall never wear a smile, save at the bidding of my soul's mistress; but my brow shall be bent by silent grief, till the ladye of Rossenville deign once more to banish its shadowing; while the lip of De Lacy shall never press goblet more, save to pledge her beauties."

"If I alone may teach your lip to