’Ah! but we have other cities.  Good Father, have we not?  Hull—­Southampton—­oh! so many, where poor strangers come that need ghostly tendance as well as bodily.  Esclairmonde—­Light of the World—­oh! it was not for nothing that they gave thee that goodly name.  The hospice shall bear it!’

‘Hush, hush! sweet pyet; mine own name is what they must not bear.’

’Ah! but the people will give it; and our Holy Father the Pope, he will put thee into the canon of saints.  Only pity that I cannot live to hear of Ste. Esclairmonde—­nay, but then I must overlive thee, mind I should not love that.’

’Oh, silence, silence, child; these are no thoughts to begin a work with.  Little flatterer, it may be well for me that our lives must needs lie so far apart that I shall not oft hear that fond silly tongue.’

‘Nay,’ said Alice, in the luxury, not of castle-building but of convent-building; ’it may be that when that knight over there sees me so small and ill-favoured he will none of me, and then I’ll thank him so, and pray my father to let him have all my lands and houses except just enough to dower me to follow thee with, dear Lady Prioress.’

But here Alice was summarily silenced.  Such talk, both priest and votaress told her, was not meet for dutiful daughter or betrothed maiden.  Her lot was fixed, and she must do her duty therein as the good wife and lady of the castle, the noble English matron; and as she looked half disposed to pout, Esclairmonde drew such a picture of the beneficent influence of the good baronial dame, ruling her castle, bringing up her children and the daughters of her vassals in good and pious nurture, making ‘the heart of her husband safely trust in her,’ benefiting the poor, and fostering holy men, wayfarers, and pilgrims, that the girl’s eyes filled within tears as she looked up and said, ’Ah! lady, this is the life fitted for thee, who can paint it so well.  Why have I not a brother, that you might be Countess of Salisbury, and I a poor little sister in a nunnery?’

Esclairmonde shook her head.  ’Silly child, petite niaise, our lots were fixed by other hands than ours.  We will strive each to serve our God, in the coif or in the veil, in samite or in serge, and He will only ask which of us has been most faithful, not whether we have lived in castle or in cloister.’

Little had Esclairmonde expected to hear the greeting with which the Countess received her, breaking out into peals of merriment as she told her of the choice destiny in store for her, to be wedded to the little lame Scot, pretending to read her a grave lecture on the consequences of the advances she had made to him.

Esclairmonde was not put out of countenance; in fact, she did not think the Countess in earnest, and merely replied with a smile that at least there was less harm in Lord Malcolm than in the suitors at home.

Jaqueline clapped her hands and cried, ’Good tidings, Clairette.  I’ll never forgive you if you make me lose my emerald carcanet!  So the arrow was winged, after all.  She prefers him—­her heart is touched by the dainty step.’