aristocracy rather of wealth than birth had, usually, a certain
portion of superfluous riches, which served to flow towards the
bazaars of the East and the nearer markets of Flanders and Saracenic
Spain.

In this room the walls were draped with silken hangings richly
embroidered. The single window was glazed with a dull grey glass [9].
On a beaufet were ranged horns tipped with silver, and a few vessels
of pure gold. A small circular table in the centre was supported by
symbolical monsters quaintly carved. At one side of the wall, on a
long settle, some half-a-dozen handmaids were employed in spinning;
remote from them, and near the window, sat a woman advanced in years,
and of a mien and aspect singularly majestic. Upon a small tripod
before her was a Runic manuscript, and an inkstand of elegant form,
with a silver graphium, or pen. At her feet reclined a girl somewhat
about the age of sixteen, her long hair parted across her forehead and
falling far down her shoulders. Her dress was a linen under-tunic,
with long sleeves, rising high to the throat, and without one of the
modern artificial restraints of the shape, the simple belt sufficed to
show the slender proportions and delicate outline of the wearer. The
colour of the dress was of the purest white, but its hems, or borders,
were richly embroidered. This girl's beauty was something marvellous.
In a land proverbial for fair women, it had already obtained her the
name of "the fair." In that beauty were blended, not as yet without a
struggle for mastery, the two expressions seldom united in one
countenance, the soft and the noble; indeed in the whole aspect there
was the evidence of some internal struggle; the intelligence was not
yet complete; the soul and heart were not yet united: and Edith the
Christian maid dwelt in the home of Hilda the heathen prophetess. The
girl's blue eyes, rendered dark by the shade of their long lashes,