enough. Thy father is a wise man, and sees far--thy father would have
us friends. Be it so. Hearken my daughter Aldyth is esteemed not the
least fair of the maidens in England; I will give her to thee as thy
wife, and as thy morgen gift, thou shalt will for me from the King the
earldom forfeited by thy brother Sweyn, now parcelled out amongst sub-
earls and thegns--easy enow to control. By the shrine of St. Alban,
dost thou hesitate, man?"

"No, not an instant," said Harold, stung to the quick. "Not, couldst
thou offer me all Mercia as her dower, would I wed the daughter of
Algar; and bend my knee, as a son to a wife's father, to the man who
despises my lineage, while he truckles to my power."

Algar's face grew convulsed with rage; but without saying a word to
the Earl he strode back to Edward, who now with vacant eyes looked up
from the rosary over which he had been bending, and said abruptly:

"My lord the King, I have spoken as I think it becomes a man who
knows his own claims, and believes in the gratitude of princes. Three
days will I tarry in London for your gracious answer; on the fourth I
depart. May the saints guard your throne, and bring around it its
best defence, the thegn-born satraps whose fathers fought with Alfred
and Athelstan. All went well with merrie England till the hoof of the
Dane King broke the soil, and mushrooms sprung up where the oak-trees
fell."

When the son of Leofric had left the chamber, the King rose wearily
and said in Norman French, to which language he always yearningly
returned when with those who could speak it: