He was obeyed; and the huge dog rushed into the hall, disturbing, by
his unwieldy and boisterous gambols, the whole economy of reels,
rocks, and distaffs, with which the maidens of the household were
employed when the arrival of their lord was a signal to them to
withdraw, and extracting from Lilias, who was summoned to put them
again in order, the natural observation, "That the Laird's pet was as
troublesome as the lady's page."

"And who is this page, Mary?" said the Knight, his attention again
called to the subject by the observation of the waiting-woman,--"Who
is this page, whom every one seems to weigh in the balance with my old
friend and favourite, Wolf?--When did you aspire to the dignity of
keeping a page, or who is the boy?"

"I trust, my Halbert," said the Lady, not without a blush, "you will
not think your wife entitled to less attendance than other ladies of
her quality?"

"Nay, Dame Mary," answered the Knight, "it is enough you desire such
an attendant.--Yet I have never loved to nurse such useless menials--a
lady's page--it may well suit the proud English dames to have a
slender youth to bear their trains from bower to hall, fan them when
they slumber, and touch the lute for them when they please to listen;
but our Scottish matrons were wont to be above such vanities, and our
Scottish youth ought to be bred to the spear and the stirrup."

"Nay, but, my husband," said the Lady, "I did but jest when I called
this boy my page; he is in sooth a little orphan whom we saved from
perishing in the lake, and whom I have since kept in the castle out of