minds, and something too of haughty exultation, that he stood a King's
brother in the halls of his exile, came to chase away the more hostile
and menacing feelings. Then Judith approached with joy on her brow,
and said:

"We shall no more eat the bread of dependence even at the hand of a
father; and since Harold hath no dame to proclaim to the Church, and
to place on the dais, thy wife, O my Tostig, will have state in far
England little less than her sister in Rouen."

"Methinks so will it be," said Tostig. "How now, nuncius? why lookest
thou so grim, and why shakest thou thy head?"

"Small chance for thy dame to keep state in the halls of the King;
small hope for thyself to win back thy broad earldom. But a few weeks
ere thy brother won the crown, he won also a bride in the house of thy
spoiler and foe. Aldyth, the sister of Edwin and Morcar, is Lady of
England; and that union shuts thee out from Northumbria for ever."

At these words, as if stricken by some deadly and inexpressible
insult, the Earl recoiled, and stood a moment mute with rage and
amaze. His singular beauty became distorted into the lineaments of a
fiend. He stamped with his foot, as he thundered a terrible curse.
Then haughtily waving his hand to the bode, in sign of dismissal, he
strode to and fro the room in gloomy perturbation.

Judith, like her sister Matilda, a woman fierce and vindictive,
continued, by that sharp venom that lies in the tongue of the sex, to
incite still more the intense resentment of her lord. Perhaps some
female jealousies of Aldyth might contribute to increase her own