The deep embrasures of the casements were thus in a manner severed from
the main apartment, for even when the curtains were completely lowered
there was space enough to contain a chair or two and a table. The
furniture corresponded in solidity and proportion to the panelling or
tapestry of the walls; nor was there any approach even at those doubtful
comforts already introduced in the more luxurious Norman castles of
South Britain.

The group, however, assembled in one of these ancient rooms needed not
the aid of adventitious ornament to betray the nobility of birth, and
those exalted and chivalric feelings inherent to their rank. The sun,
whose stormy radiance during the day had alternately deluged earth and
sky with fitful yet glorious brilliance, and then, burying itself in the
dark masses of overhanging clouds, robed every object in deepest gloom,
now seemed to concentrate his departing rays in one living flood of
splendor, and darting within the chamber, lingered in crimson glory
around the youthful form of a gentle girl, dyeing her long and
clustering curls with gold. Slightly bending over a large and cumbrous
frame which supported her embroidery, her attitude could no more conceal
the grace and lightness of her childlike form, than the glossy ringlets
the soft and radiant features which they shaded. There was archness
lurking in those dark blue eyes, to which tears seemed yet a stranger;
the clear and snowy forehead, the full red lip, and health-bespeaking
cheek had surely seen but smiles, and mirrored but the joyous light
which filled her gentle heart. Her figure seemed to speak a child, but
there was a something in that face, bright, glowing as it was, which yet
would tell of somewhat more than childhood--that seventeen summers had
done their work, and taught that guileless heart a sterner tale than
gladness.