[Sidenote: The Lady of the Court]

The Lady of the Court was wont to send her knight into danger at her
sweet, capricious will. Her glove upon his helmet, her scarf upon his
arm, her colours on his shield--were they worth the risk of horse and
spear? Yet the little that she gave him, made him invincible in the
field.

To-day there is a subtle change. She is loved as dearly as was
Guenevere, but she gives him neither scarf nor glove. Her love in his
heart is truly his shield and his colours are the white of her soul.

He needs no gage but her belief, and having that, it is a trust only a
coward will betray. The battle is still to the strong, but just as
surely her knight comes back with his shield untarnished, his colours
unstained, and his heart aglow with love of her who gave him courage.

The centuries have brought new striving, which the Lady of the Court
could never know. The daughter of to-day endeavours to be worthy of the
knightly worship--to be royal in her heart and queenly in her giving; to
be the exquisitely womanly woman he sees behind her faulty clay, so that
if the veil of illusion he has woven around her should ever fall away,
the reality might be even fairer than his dream.

Through the sombre pages of history the knights and ladies move, as
though woven in the magic web of the Lady of Shalott. Tournament and
shield and spear, the Round Table and Camelot, have taken on the mystery
of fables and dreams.

[Sidenote: By Grace of Magic]