ondering.

"Well then, take this to mind you of your vow," she said, and threw
a little bronze brooch, gilt and set with bright enamel, into the
basket, and so fled into the house, leaving me on the doorstep with
the apples.

I set them down there, and had a mind to leave the brooch also.
However, on second thoughts I took it, and went my way in a puzzled
state of mind. It certainly seemed that Elfrida was desperately
angry with me for reasons which were not easy to fathom, and yet
she had given me this--that is, if to have a thing thrown at one is
to have it given. But I was not going to quarrel with the manner of
a gift from Elfrida, and so I went on with it in my hand, and as I
turned the corner into a fresh path I also ran into the abbot of
the new minster, who was on his way to speak with Owen before he
set out. He had been a great friend of Bishop Aldhelm's, and I had
known him well since the old days of Malmesbury.

"So Oswald," he cried, "I have been looking for you, that I might
wish you all good in your thaneship. Why, some of us are proud of
you. And I, having known you since you were a child, feel as if I
had some sort of a share in your honours. But what is amiss? One
would look to see you the gayest of the gay, and it seems as if the
world had gone awry with you."

Now, the abbot was just the friend to whom I could tell my present
trouble without fear of being mocked, for he was wont to stand to
us boys of the court as the good friend who would help us out of a
scrape if he could, and make us feel ashamed thereof in private
afterward, in all kindliness. So I told him what was on my mind,
for he was at the feast last night.

"It is all that vow of mine," I said. "I have just met Elfrida, and
she is angry with me for naming her at all."

"Unfair," said the abbot. "You could not have helped it, seeing
that you were bidden to do so."

I had forgotten that, and it was possible that Elfrida did not know
it. So I said that I did not look for quite the scorn I had met
with, at all events. Whereon the abbot stayed in his walk and asked
more, trying to look grave as he heard me, and soon he had all the
story.

"So you carried the basket like any thrall, and had my Yuletide
gift to her in payment," he said, with his eyes twinkling; "I will
ask if she has lost it presently, and you will be avenged."

He laughed again, and then said more gravely, but with a smile not
far off:

"Go to, Oswald, don't ask m