in all their frolicking my little lady could ne'er abide the
sight o' their swords, and she pleaded ever for gentler games. One day
(I shall ne'er forget, though I live to see doomsday) they did crown her
a queen, and then my lord would have it that she dubbed him her knight.
She pleaded that prettily against it methought the veriest boor in
Christendom would a given in to her, but my little lord was stanch. So
they made her a throne o' flowers, and when she was seated thereon,
Mistress Marian handed her the great wooden sword, and my lord,
kneeling, bade her strike him on the shoulder with the flat side o' th'
sword, saying, "Rise, Sir Ernle, my knight for evermore!"

She got out the words as he bade her, but when 't came to the stroke,
what with her natural fright, and what with the sunlight on the silver,
she brought down the heavy blade edgewise on the boy's pate, laying wide
quite a gash above his left eyebrow, so that the blood trickled down his
cheek. When she saw that, meseemed all the blood in her body went to
keep his company, for she turned whiter than her smock, and ran and got
her arm about him and saith, o'er and o'er again, "Ernle! Ernle! I have
killed thee!"

He laughed, to comfort her, and made light of it, and wetting his finger
in the blood, drew a cross on his brow and said, "Nay, thou hast not
killed me. And moreo'er, I am not only thy knight, but thy Red Cross
Knight into the bargain, and thou my lady forever. See! I will seal thee
with my very blood!" and ere she could draw back, he had set also a
cross on her white brow. She shuddered and fell a-weeping, and drew her
hand across her brow to wipe away the ugly stain; and when she saw that
she had but smeared it on her hand, she trembled more than ever, and it
was not for some days that I could quiet her.

I do but relate this story, to show in what horror my little lady did
ever hold swords and bloodshed.

Well, to continue--

This could not last for aye, and when two more years were sped, his
uncle sent the little lord to a place o' learning; and afterwards to
travel to and fro upon the earth, after the manner of Satan in the Book
of Job (God forgive me! but 't has ever seemed like that to me). And we
set not eyes on him for eight years. Now in that time, lo! I was
married, and my little lady and Mistress Marian in long kirtles, and
their hair looped up upon their heads. Mistress Marian was yet full
head and shoulders above my little lady, a