m in vain;
For the chords, which their spell once o'er memory cast,
Ne'er shall waken to gladness again!"

"I hold these minstrels now no better than the croaking of your carrion
crow," said the elder lady: "these are not like the songs we used to
hear in hall and bower at Dunham Massey. Then "--the old lady forgetting
that her own ears had played her false, and her relish for these
dainties had departed--"Then," raising her voice and gazing round, as
past scenes recurred to her fancy, "how my young heart would leap at the
sound of their ditties! and how I long to hear again _'Sir Armoric'_ and
the '_Golden-Legend_,' and all about the lady with the swine's snout and
the silver trough!"

But Isabella heard not her mother's reminiscences. The minstrel
engrossed her attention, absorbing her whole thoughts, it might seem,
with the display of his cunning. Her cheek was flushed, and her lip
trembled. Some mysterious faculty there was either in the song or the
performer.

Again he poured forth a strain more touching, and of ravishing
sweetness:--

Song.

1.
"Smile on, my love; that sunny smile
Is light and life and joy to thee;
But, oh, its glance of witchery the while,
Is maddening, hopeless misery to me.

2.
"Another bosom thou mayest bless,
Whose chords shall wake with ecstasy;
On mine, each thrilling thought thy looks impress
Wakes but the pang of hopeless destiny.

3.
"Smile on, my love; that sunny smile
Is light and life and joy to thee;
But, oh, its glance of witchery the while,
Is hopeless, maddening misery to me."

These were burning thoughts from the bosom of age; and had not the old
lady's perceptions been somewhat obtuse, she might have guessed the
minstrel's purpose. His despair was not so utterly hopeless and without
remedy as the purport of his song seemed to forebode--for the morning
light saw the bower of Isabella vacant, and her bed undisturbed. She was
then far over the blue hills into Staffordshire, where another sun saw
her the wife of Sir John Stanley; immediately after which they departed
into Ireland.

Sir Thomas threw the reins on the neck of his choler, and, as tradition
reports, did then disinherit her for ever in favour of Sir Oskatell. How
far the latter might be privy to this resolve, or whether Sir Thomas,
goaded on aforetime to the aggrandisement of his name, seized the
present opportunity only a