pake her eyes sparkled, her cheek flushed, and her limbs and
her feet seemed as if they could scarce refrain from dancing for joy.
Then Walter knit his brow, and for a moment a thought half-framed was in
his mind: Is it so, that she will bewray me and live without me? and he
cast his eyes on to the ground. But she said: "Look up, and into mine
eyes, friend, and see if there be in them any falseness toward thee! For
I know thy thought; I know thy thought. Dost thou not see that my joy
and gladness is for the love of thee, and the thought of the rest from
trouble that is at hand?"

He looked up, and his eyes met the eyes of her love, and he would have
cast his arms about her; but she drew aback and said: "Nay, thou must
refrain thee awhile, dear friend, lest these folk cast eyes on us, and
deem us over lover-like for what I am to bid them deem me. Abide a
while, and then shall all be in me according to thy will. But now I must
tell thee that it is not very far from noon, and that the Bears are
streaming into the Dale, and already there is an host of men at the Doom-
ring, and, as I said, the bale for the burnt-offering is wellnigh dight,
whether it be for us, or for some other creature. And now I have to bid
thee this, and it will be a thing easy for thee to do, to wit, that thou
look as if thou wert of the race of the Gods, and not to blench, or show
sign of blenching, whatever betide: to yea-say both my yea-say and my nay-
say: and lastly this, which is the only hard thing for thee (but thou
hast already done it before somewhat), to look upon me with no masterful
eyes of love, nor as if thou wert at once praying me and commanding me;
rather thou shalt so demean thee as if thou wert my man all simply, and
nowise my master."

"O friend beloved," said Walter, "here at least art thou the master, and
I will do all thy bidding, in certain hope of this, that either we shall
live together or die together."

But as they spoke, in came the elder, and with him a young maiden,
bearing with them their breakfast of curds arid cream and strawberries,
and he bade them eat. So they ate, and were not unmerry; and the while
of their eating the elder talked with them soberly, but not hardly, or
with any seeming enmity: and ever his talk gat on to the drought, which
was now burning up the down-pastures; and how the grass in the watered
dales, which was no wide spread of land, would not hold out much longer
unless the God sent them