ver
quick-witted--"nay, it is not for my own happiness that I ride
southward."

The page then said. "What is her name?"

And Prince Edward answered, very fondly, "Hawise."

"Her, too, I hate," said Miguel de Rueda; "and I think that the holy
angels alone know how profoundly I envy her."

In the afternoon of the same day they neared Ruffec, and at the ford
found three brigands ready, two of whom the Prince slew, and the other
fled.

Next night they supped at Manneville, and sat afterward in the little
square, tree-chequered, that lay before their inn. Miguel had procured
a lute from the innkeeper, and strummed idly as these two debated
together of great matters; about them was an immeasurable twilight,
moonless, but tempered by many stars, and everywhere an agreeable
conference of leaves.

"Listen, my Prince," the boy said more lately: "here is one view of the
affair." And he began to chant, without rhyming, without raising his
voice above the pitch of talk, what time the lute monotonously sobbed
beneath his fingers.

Sang Miguel:

"_A little while and Irus and Menephtah are at sorry unison, and
Guenevere is but a skull. Multitudinously we tread toward oblivion, as
ants hasten toward sugar, and presently Time cometh with his broom.
Multitudinously we tread a dusty road toward oblivion; but yonder the
sun shines upon a grass-plot, converting it into an emerald; and I am
aweary of the trodden path._

"_Vine-crowned is she that guards the grasses yonder, and her breasts
are naked. 'Vanity of Vanities!' saith the beloved. But she whom I
love seems very far away to-night, though I might be with her if I
would. And she may not aid me now, for not even love is all-powerful.
She is fairest of created women, and very wise, but she may never
understand that at any time one grows aweary of the trodden path._

"_Yet though she cannot understand, this woman who has known me to the
marrow, I must obey her laudable behests and serve her blindly. At
sight of her my love closes over my heart like a flood, so that I am
speechless and glory in my impotence, as one who stands at last before
the kindly face of God. For her sake I have striven, with a good
endeavor, to my tiny uttermost. Pardie, I am not Priam at the head of
his army! A little while and I will repent; to-night I cannot but
remember that there are women whose lips are of a livelier tint, that
life is short at best, that wine is a goodly thing, and that