w Gate, the crowd
was swelled by squads of the lesser Cheapside dealers making the daily
pilgrimage from their country dwellings to their stalls in the City. But
these were as scattered islands in the stream of half drunken seamen,
masterless thralls, wolf-eyed beggars, paupers, vagabonds and criminals,
who were pushing toward London in hopes of pleasure or gain or for want
of another goal.

Amid such a rabble, and as out of place as a swarm of butterflies in
frost-silvered air, a band of high-born women was to be seen approaching
the City this early December morning. Gorgeously attired pages, hardly
more warlike than the women, made a blooming hedge around them, while
a sufficiently strong guard of men-at-arms protected them from actual
harm, but from impudent comment and ribald jest there was no defence.
Their hoods were pulled down as before a storm, their mantles drawn
up above their chins; and all but two of them appeared to be trying to
shrink into their gilded saddles.

The two who rode at their head, however, looked to be of a different
mettle. Indeed, in the quality of her courage, each appeared to
differ from the other, though muffling folds blotted out anything like
individuality. The shorter of the two, while she rode with gracefully
drooping head, had left her face practically uncovered, seemingly
unconscious of the half slighting, half pitying admiration elicited by
its pathetic beauty. The other, who showed no more than the tip of her
nose, held her head bravely erect, while, even through her wrappings,
the straightness of her back breathed haughtiness.

Yet it was not to the pensive fair one that a timid companion appealed
for comfort, when a temporary damming of the stream pressed those who
led, back upon those who followed. She stretched out an en-treating hand
toward the girl with the haughtily carried head.

"Randalin! What will he do--the King--when he finds that we have fooled
Ulf Jarl, and come hither against his command?"

The Danish girl laughed recklessly. "Little do I care, Candida, to tell
it truthfully. Nothing can be worse than sitting in that Abbey. Here at
least there is a chance that something may happen to help us to forget
that we are alive."

Candida shook the cloak she had grasped. "But you expect that he will be
angry! You told Elfgiva not to undertake the journey because of it. And
you were able to say the soothest about his temper."

"I was obliged to tell her that to be