was, and her beauty and valour, and he constrained himself to say:
'Each day she groweth fairer; there is no man's son and no daughter
of woman that does not love her; yea, the very beasts of field and
fold love her.'

The Friend looked at him steadily and spake no word, but a red flush
mounted to her cheeks and brow and changed her face; and he marvelled
thereat; for still he misdoubted that she was a Goddess. But it
passed away in a moment, and she smiled and said:

'Guest, thou seemest to wonder that I know concerning thee and the
Dale and thy kindred. But now shalt thou wot that I have been in the
Dale once and again, and my brother oftener still; and that I have
seen thee before yesterday.'

'That is marvellous,' quoth he, 'for sure am I that I have not seen
thee.'

'Yet thou hast seen me,' she said; 'yet not altogether as I am now;'
and therewith she smiled on him friendly.

'How is this?' said he; 'art thou a skin-changer?'

'Yea, in a fashion,' she said. 'Hearken! dost thou perchance
remember a day of last summer when there was a market holden in
Burgstead; and there stood in the way over against the House of the
Face a tall old carle who was trucking deer-skins for diverse gear;
and with him was a queen, tall and dark-skinned, somewhat well-
liking, her hair bound up in a white coif so that none of it could be
seen; by the token that she had a large stone of mountain blue set in