ide with gold and
gems, even as he saw it in the orchard-close aforetime: and he beheld her
face that it was no longer the face of one sick with sorrow; but glad and
clear, and most beauteous.

Now she opened the book and held it before Hallblithe and turned the
leaves so that he might see them clearly; and therein were woods and
castles painted, and burning mountains, and the wall of the world, and
kings upon their thrones, and fair women and warriors, all most lovely to
behold, even as he had seen it aforetime in the orchard when he lay
lurking amidst the leaves of the bay-tree.

So at last she came to the place in the book wherein was painted
Hallblithe's own image over against the image of the Hostage; and he
looked thereon and longed. But she turned the leaf, and, lo! on one side
the Hostage again, standing in a fair garden of the spring with the
lilies all about her feet, and behind her the walls of a house, grey,
ancient, and lovely: and on the other leaf over against her was painted a
sea rippled by a little wind and a boat thereon sailing swiftly, and one
man alone in the boat sitting and steering with a cheerful countenance;
and he, who but Hallblithe himself. Hallblithe looked thereon for a
while and then the King's daughter shut the book, and the dream flowed
into other imaginings of no import.

In the grey dawn Hallblithe awoke, and called to mind his dream, and he
leapt from his bed and washed the night from off him in the stream, and
clad himself and went the shortest way through the wood to that House of
folk aforesaid: and as he went his face was bright and he sang the second
part of the carven posy; to wit:

Along the grass I lie forlorn
That when a while of time is worn,
I may be filled with war and peace
And bridge the sundering of the seas.

He came out of the wood and hastened over the flowery meads of the
Glittering Plain, and came to that same house when it was yet very early.
At the door he came across a damsel bearing water from the well, and she
spake to him and said: "Welcome, Wood-lover! Seldom art thou seen in our
garth; and that is a pity of thee. And now I look on thy face I see that
gladness hath come into thine heart, and that thou art most fair and
lovely. Here then is a token for thee of the increase of gladness."
Therewith she set her buckets on the earth, and stood before him, and
took him by the ears, and drew down his face to hers and kissed him
sweetly. H