"Not so, Harold," answered Hilda, quickly turning; such was ever the
ceremony due to Saxon king, when he slept in a subject's house, ere
our kinsmen the Danes introduced that unroyal wassail, which left
subject and king unable to hold or to quaff cup, when the board was
left for the bed."

"Thou rebukest, O Hilda, too tauntingly, the pride of Godwin's house,
when thou givest to his homely son the ceremonial of a king. But, so
served, I envy not kings, fair Edith."

He took the cup, raised it to his lips, and when he placed it on the
small table by his side the women had left the chamber, and he was
alone. He stood for some minutes absorbed in reverie, and his
soliloquy ran somewhat thus:

"Why said the Vala that Edith's fate was inwoven with mine? And why
did I believe and bless the Vala, when she so said? Can Edith ever be
my wife? The monk-king designs her for the cloister--Woe, and well-a-
day! Sweyn, Sweyn, let thy doom forewarn me! And if I stand up in my
place and say, 'Give age and grief to the cloister--youth and delight
to man's hearth,' what will answer the monks? 'Edith cannot be thy
wife, son of Godwin, for faint and scarce traced though your affinity
of blood, ye are within the banned degrees of the Church. Edith may
be wife to another, if thou wilt,--barren spouse of the Church or
mother of children who lisp not Harold's name as their father.' Out
on these priests with their mummeries, and out on their war upon human
hearts!"

His fair brow grew stern and fierce as the Norman Duke's in his ire;