were fixed intently upon the stern and troubled countenance which was
bent upon her own, but bent with that abstract gaze which shows that
the soul is absent from the sight. So sate Hilda, and so reclined her
grandchild Edith.

"Grandam," said the girl in a low voice and after a long pause; and
the sound of her voice so startled the handmaids, that every spindle
stopped for a moment and then plied with renewed activity; "Grandam,
what troubles you--are you not thinking of the great Earl and his fair
sons, now outlawed far over the wide seas?"

As the girl spoke, Hilda started slightly, like one awakened from a
dream; and when Edith had concluded her question, she rose slowly to
the height of a statue, unbowed by her years, and far towering above
even the ordinary standard of men; and turning from the child, her eye
fell upon the row of silent maids, each at her rapid, noiseless,
stealthy work. "Ho!" said she; her cold and haughty eye gleaming as
she spoke; "yesterday they brought home the summer--to-day, ye aid to
bring home the winter. Weave well--heed well warf and woof; Skulda
[10] is amongst ye, and her pale fingers guide the web!"

The maidens lifted not their eyes, though in every cheek the colour
paled at the words of the mistress. The spindles revolved, the thread
shot, and again there was silence more freezing than before.

"Askest thou," said Hilda at length, passing to the child, as if the
question so long addressed to her ear had only just reached her mind;
"askest thou if I thought of the Earl and his fair sons?--yea, I heard
the smith welding arms on the anvil, and the hammer of the shipwright
shaping strong ribs for the horses of the sea. Ere the reaper has