hat you have displayed an
unnecessary interest about the result. That young stripling has cost me
more lives than he numbers years; and though I could not connive at
Bertha's attempt to assassinate, I certainly do not see much reason to
rejoice at his escape."

It may have been that Margaret quailed a little beneath her father's
rigid scrutiny, but without embarrassment she returned:

"If I had been born and bred to arms, if my breast were accustomed to
the coat of mail, if my hand could wield the battle-axe, I might
anxiously crave, or coldly behold the murder of a foe confiding in our
generosity and in our plighted faith to the Church; but I have never
worn the gauntlet, or drawn the sword; my heart has never exulted at the
gladsome sight of an enemy's blood, and I scorn to ascribe the interest
I may have shown, to a wish of having the sweet assurance that a scion
of Hers would perish like a dog, when in reality I hoped to find the
weapon venomless."

"Spoken like a woman, as you are," muttered the knight. "I would have
you feel otherwise, but God has given you your sex; I cannot change its
nature."

The Baron of Stramen was a tall, powerful man, whose vigor fifty years
had not impaired. His face was stern, though not repulsive, and free
from any approach to vulgarity. A man of strong passions, yet the
strongest of all was an unvarying love for his daughter, on whom seemed
to have centered all the tenderness of which he was capable. On the
present occasion, he put an end to further controversy by drawing
Margaret to his side, and giving her an exquisitely wrought head of
Gregory VII.

"Treasure it, my child," he said, "it is the faithful likeness of a
wonderful man--a man who may one day, with a few stout hearts to second
his energy, chastise the impious tyranny of the house of Franconia!" He
spoke with deep feeling, and, after pacing the room, with his arms
folded upon his broad breast, abruptly stalked through the door,
apparently absorbed in some momentous question.

No sooner had he gone, than Margaret turned to Linda, who still occupied
the corner, and dismissed her with a message to Father Omehr. When
alone, she knelt down before an ivory image of the Blessed Virgin and
prayed--not to the polished ivory--but to the Mother of purity whose
intercession it suggested, with a fervency and constancy which only they
venture to ridicule who cannot record the virtues of Mary without a
sneer.

Though not apprehe