s not merely
his old tales and older wine which drew the young men to Cosford, but
rather the fair face of his younger daughter, or the strong soul and
wise counsel of the elder. Never had two more different branches sprung
from the same trunk. Both were tall and of a queenly graceful figure.
But there all resemblance began and ended.

Edith was yellow as the ripe corn, blue-eyed, winning, mischievous, with
a chattering tongue, a merry laugh, and a smile which a dozen of young
gallants, Nigel of Tilford at their head, could share equally amongst
them. Like a young kitten she played with all things that she found in
life, and some there were who thought that already the claws could be
felt amid the patting of her velvet touch.

Mary was dark as night, grave-featured, plain-visaged, with steady brown
eyes looking bravely at the world from under a strong black arch of
brows. None could call her beautiful, and when her fair sister cast her
arm round her and placed her cheek against hers, as was her habit when
company was there, the fairness of the one and the plainness of the
other leaped visibly to the eyes of all, each the clearer for that hard
contrast. And yet, here and there, there was one who, looking at her
strange, strong face, and at the passing gleams far down in her dark
eyes, felt that this silent woman with her proud bearing and her queenly
grace had in her something of strength, of reserve and of mystery which
was more to them than all the dainty glitter of her sister.

Such were the ladies of Cosford toward whom Nigel Loring rode that night
with doublet of Genoan velvet and the new white feather in his cap.

He had ridden over Thursley Ridge past that old stone where in days gone
by at the place of Thor the wild Saxons worshiped their war-god. Nigel
looked at it with a wary eye and spurred Pommers onward as he passed it,
for still it was said that wild fires danced round it on the moonless
nights, and they who had ears for such things could hear the scream and
sob of those whose lives had been ripped from them that the fiend might
be honored. Thor's stone, Thor's jumps, Thor's punch-bowl--the whole
country-side was one grim monument to the God of Battles, though the
pious monks had changed his uncouth name for that of the Devil his
father, so that it was the Devil's jumps and the Devil's punch-bowl of
which they spoke. Nigel glanced back at the old gray boulder, and he
felt for an instant a shudder pass th