bed it against his friend's knee. He had not
miscalculated. The boy's smile deepened easily into a laugh, and he
leaped to his feet to accept the challenge. Seizing the stick, he put
all the strength of his lithesome body into an effort to make off with
it, while the great hound braced himself, with a rapture of rumbling
growls and short delighted barks. So they tussled, back and forth,
this way and that, amid a merry tumult of barking and laughter,--such a
tumult that neither heard the steps that both were waiting for, when at
last those steps came briskly through the archway. The first they knew
of it, the Lord of Ivarsdale was standing under the lintel, chatting
with those who came behind him.

With lips yet parted by their breathless laughter, the lad straightened
quickly from his sport, and stood shaking back his tumbling curls and
mopping his hot face, in which the rich color glowed through the tanned
skin like the velvety red on a golden peach. When, for one flashing
instant, they encountered a keen glance from the young lord, the color
deepened, and the iris-blue eyes suddenly brimmed over with mischievous
sparkles; then the black lashes were lowered demurely, and the page,
retreating to his place beside the step, signified only deference and
decorum.

Followed by old Morcard and the fat monk, the Etheling descended from
the doorway and stood on the broad step, shading his eyes from the glare
of brilliant light while he looked about him with evident pleasure in
the fairness of the day.

"Now is the time to lay by a store of sweet memories against the stress
of winter weather," he said. "Whither do you go to harvest the sunshine,
father?"

The monk pulled his round red face to a devout length. "Why, there is
a good woman at the other end of the dale, my son, that labors under
a weakness of her limbs; and I have bethought me that it would be a
Christian act to fetch her this holy relique I wear about my neck,
that she may lay it upon the afflicted members and perhaps, aided by my
exhortations, experience some relief."

"If the question may be permitted me, whither do you betake yourself, my
lord?" the old cniht asked.

With the light wand he carried, the young man made a gesture quite
around the horizon. "Everywhere and nowhere. After I have been to see
what they are doing with that portion of the palisade which I bade them
repair as soon as they had finished the barrier, I am--"

"That is something that