The summer passed away, and the bleak fall came. Myles had long since
accepted his position as one set apart from the others of his kind, and
had resigned himself to the evident fact that he was never to serve
in the household in waiting upon the Earl. I cannot say that it never
troubled him, but in time there came a compensation of which I shall
have presently to speak.

And then he had so much the more time to himself. The other lads were
sometimes occupied by their household duties when sports were afoot
in which they would liked to have taken part. Myles was always free
to enter into any matter of the kind after his daily exercise had been
performed at the pels, the butts, or the tilting-court.

But even though he was never called to do service in "my Lord's house,"
he was not long in gaining a sort of second-hand knowledge of all the
family. My Lady, a thin, sallow, faded dame, not yet past middle age,
but looking ten years older. The Lady Anne, the daughter of the house;
a tall, thin, dark-eyed, dark-haired, handsome young dame of twenty or
twenty-one years of age, hawk-nosed like her father, and silent, proud,
and haughty, Myles heard the squires say. Lady Alice, the Earl of
Mackworth's niece and ward, a great heiress in her own right, a
strikingly pretty black-eyed girl of fourteen or fifteen.

These composed the Earl's personal family; but besides them was Lord
George Beaumont, his Earl's brother, and him Myles soon came to know
better than any of the chief people of the castle excepting Sir James
Lee.

For since Myles's great battle in the armory, Lord George had taken a
laughing sort of liking to the lad, encouraging him at times to talk of