dly paleness, a strange gray hue,
come over her face; suddenly she extended her arms, and fell back
upon her couch.

Wilfred ran for help. Even the Norman servants loved their
mistress, and hurried to her chamber; baron, priest, all were
there; she lay as if insensible, but when Father Elphege, the
prior, arrived, and began the litany for the dying, she raised her
head and strove to follow.

That morning she had received the Holy Communion at his hands; and
of the familiar rites prescribed by the Church of those days for
the comfort of the dying, only the last anointing, after the
example of Him, whose body was anointed for His burial, remained,
and with humble faith she received the holy rite.

This done, she made signs for her children to approach; she threw
her arms fondly around them in turn, but could not speak.

The priest bade them all kneel down, and he recommenced the litany
for the dying. Soon he came to the solemn words:

"Per Crucem et Passionem Tuam,
Libera eam Domine {viii}."

She strove to make the holy sign of our redemption, and in making
it, yielded her chaste soul to the hands of her merciful Father and
loving Redeemer. She had gone to rejoin her own true love, and her
poor children were orphans in a world of violence and wrong.

They laid her by the side of Edmund, and the same solemn rites we
have described before were yet once more repeated. There were many,
many true mourners, all the poor English who felt that her
intercession alone had interposed between them and a cruel
lord--and the very foreigners themselves, whom her meekness and
gentle beauty had strangely touched--all mourned the lily of
Aescendune.

But her children!--Who shall describe the sense of desolation which
fell upon them as they stood by the open grave?

"Comfort them, O Father of the fatherless," prayed the good prior;
"comfort them and defend them with Thy favourable kindness as with
a shield."

CHAPTER V. A FRAY IN THE GREENWOOD.

After the last sad rites were paid to the Lady Winifred, a deep
gloom fell upon Wilfred, and his sorrow was so great that it won
respect from his Norman companions, at least for a time.

He was indeed alone, for the baron had sent his sister Edith to a
convent for her better education, as he said, and as Wilfred had
none of his own kith and kin about him, he avoided all company,
save when the routine of each day forced him into the society of
his fellow pages.

Such was the