denser. The trees seemed more primeval, the foliage thicker overhead,
the interspaces of the golden evening sky darker and less frequent.

"In what place may your company be assembled?" he asked. "Strange it
is that I know not this spot. Yet I should recognise each tree by
conning it, and of every rivulet in Galloway I should be able to tell
the name. Yet with shame do I confess that I know not where I am."

"Ah," said the girl, her face growing luminous through the gloom, "you
called me a witch, and now you shall see. I wave my hands, so--and you
are no more in Galloway. You are in the land of faëry. I blow you a
kiss, so--and lo! you are no more William, sixth Earl of Douglas and
proximate Duke of Touraine, but you are even as True Thomas, the
Beloved of the Queen of the Fairies, and the slave of her spell!"

"I am indeed well content to be Thomas Rhymer," he answered,
submitting himself to the wooing glamour of her eyes, "so be that you
are the Lady of the milk-white hind!"

"A courtier indeed," she laughed; "you need not to seek your answer.
You make a poor girl afraid. But see, yonder are the lights of my
pavilion. Will it please you to alight and enter? The supper will be
spread, and though you must not expect any to entertain you, save only
this your poor Queen Mab" (here she made him a little bow), "yet I
think you will not be ill content. They do not say that Thomas of
Ercildoune had any cause for complaint. Do you know," she continued, a
fresh gaiety striking into her voice, "it was in this very wood that
he was lost."

But William Douglas sat silent with the wonder of what he saw. Their