feeling the first ear-ring glide
softly into her ear.

"Ah, I have afore been here. I see a widow lady at de window. Why come
she not to hall?--Oh, how fair you shall be! you shall every eye
charm!--She is here no more--yes?"

"Well, ay--there is a widow lady dwelleth here," said Kate, offering the
other ear to her beguiler, just as Norman Hylton came up to them; "but
she is a prisoner, and--hush! haste you, now, or I must run without
them."

"Dat shall you not," said Ivo, quickly slipping the second ear-ring into
its place. "Ah, how lovesome should you be, under dat bush by the gate,
that hath de yellow flowers, when de sun was setting, and all golden
behind you! Keep well de holy relic; it shall bring you good."

And with a significant look, and a glance upwards at the house, Ivo
shouldered his pack, and turned away.

The mercer had not seemed anxious to do business with the household.
Perhaps he felt that his wares were scarcely within their means. He sat
quietly in the gateway until the jeweller had finished his chaffering,
when he rose and walked out beside him. The two packs were carefully
strapped on the waiting mules, which were held by the lad, and the party
marched down the slope from the gateway.

"What bought you with your holy relic and your ear-rings, Ivo?" asked
the mercer, with a rather satirical glance at his companion, when they
were well out of hearing. "Aught that was worth them?"

"I bought the news that our Lady abideth hither," was the grave reply;
"and it was cheap, at the cost of a scrap of tin and another of glass,
and an inch or twain of thread out of your pack. If yon maid have but
wit to be under the shrub by the gate at sunset, I shall win more of
her. But she's but a poor brain, or I err. Howbeit, I've had my
ear-rings' worth. They cost but a halfpenny. Can you see aught from
here? Your eyes be sharper than mine."

"I see somewhat white at yonder window. But, Ivo, were you wise to tell
the lady you came from Hennebon?"

"I was, Sir Roland. She will suspect me now, instead of you; and if, as
I guess, she send a spy after us, when we part company he will follow
me, and you shall be quit of him."

The mercer glanced back, as though to see if any one were following.

"Well, perchance you say well," he answered. "There is none behind,
methinks. So now to rejoin Father Eloy."

Norman Hylton had not followed the packmen beyond the gate. He did not
like the busines