only saw a cloudy mist of autumn spreading over the meadow,
fringed at its edges with lingering evening lights, and then
vanishing far over the waves. The knight scarcely knew what
had happened to him. He returned to his chamber buried in
thought, and sometimes feeling sure that he had beheld
Aslauga, sometimes, again, that some goblin had risen before
him with deceitful tricks, mocking in spiteful wise the
service which he had vowed to his dead mistress. But
henceforth, wherever he roved, over valley or forest or heath,
or whether he sailed upon the waves of the sea, the like
appearances met him. Once he found a lute lying in a wood,
and drove a wolf away from it, and when sounds burst from the
lute without its being touched a fair child rose up from it,
as of old Aslauga herself had done. At another time he would
see goats clambering among the highest cliffs by the sea-
shore, and it was a golden form who tended them. Then, again,
a bright queen, resplendent in a dazzling bark, would seem to
glide past him, and salute him graciously,--and if he strove
to approach any of those he found nothing but cloud, and mist,
and vapour. Of all this many a lay might be sung. But so
much he learnt from them all--that the fair Lady Aslauga
accepted his service, and that he was now indeed and in truth
become her knight.

Meanwhile the winter had come and gone. In northern lands
this season never fails to bring to those who understand and
love it many an image full of beauty and meaning, with which
a child of man might well be satisfied, so far as earthly
happiness can satisfy, through all his time on earth. But
when the spring came glancing forth with its opening buds and