sed and his arms folded across his breast.

"Have you become as dumb as I was deaf, old man?" asked the woman,
petulantly.

Still the Hebrew refused to speak.

"Have patience with him, old woman," said Bladud, in a soothing tone.
"He is sometimes taken with unaccountable fits--"

"Fits!" interrupted the old woman. "I wish he had the fits that I have
sometimes. Perhaps they would cure him of his impudence. They would
cure you too, young man, of your stupidity."

"Stupidity!" echoed Bladud, much amused. "I have been credited with
pride and haste and many other faults in my day, but never with
stupidity."

"Was it not stupid of you to go and ask that silly girl to wed you--that
double-faced thing that knows how to cheat and deceive and--"

"Come, come, old woman," said the prince, repressing with difficulty a
burst of indignation. "You allow your old tongue to wag too freely. I
suppose," he added, turning to Beniah, "that we can conclude our
conversation outside?"

But the Hebrew still remained immovable and sternly dumb.

Unable to understand this, Bladud turned again to the old woman, but,
lo! the old woman was gone, and in her place stood Branwen, erect, with
the grey shawl thrown back, and a half-timid smile on her face.

To say that Bladud was thunderstruck is not sufficient to indicate his
condition. He stood as if rooted to the spot with his whole being
concentrated in his wide-open blue eyes.

"Is my presumption too great, Bladud?" asked the girl, hesitatingly. "I
did but wish to assure you that I have no other deceptions to practise.
That I fear--I hope--that--"

The prince, recovering himself, sprang forward and once again stopped
her mouth--not with his hand; oh! by no means!--while Beniah, with that
refinement of wisdom which is the prerogative of age, stepped out to
ascertain whether it happened to be rain or sunshine that ruled at the
time. Curiously enough he found that it was the latter.

That evening the doctor of the royal household was summoned by an
affrighted servitor to the apartment of Gadarn, who had been overheard
choking. The alarmed man of medicine went at once, and, bursting into
the room without knocking, found the great northern chief sitting on the
edge of his couch purple in the face and with tears in his eyes. The
exasperated man leaped up intending to kick the doctor out, but,
changing his mind, he kicked the horrified servitor out instead, and,
taking the doctor