Here is this courteous knight, who has not opened his mouth three times since he has been in my house except to take in provision, cuts me short in my story with a flat denial." "Oh! I cry you mercy, sir knight," said Matilda; "I did not mark you before.

I am your debtor for no slight favour, and so is my liege lord." "Her liege lord!" exclaimed the baron, taking large strides across the chamber.
"Pardon me, gentle lady," said Sir Ralph.

"Had I known you before yesterday, I would have cut off my right hand ere it should have been raised to do you displeasure.
"Oh sir," said Matilda, "a good man may be forced on an ill office: but I can distinguish the man from his duty." She presented to him her hand, which he kissed respectfully, and simultaneously with the contact thirty-two invisible arrows plunged at once into his heart, one from every point of the compass of his pericardia.
"Well, father," added Matilda, "I must go to the woods." "Must you ?" said the baron; "I say you must not." "But I am going," said Matilda "But I will have up the drawbridge," said the baron.
"But I will swim the moat," said Matilda.
"But I will secure the gates," said the baron.
"But I will leap from the battlement," said Matilda.
"But I will lock you in an upper chamber," said the baron.
"But I will shred the tapestry," said Matilda, "and let myself down." "But I will lock you in a turret," said the baron, "where you shall only see light through a loophole." "But through that loophole," said Matilda, "will I take my flight, like a young eagle from its eerie; and, father, while I go out freely, I will return willingly: but if once I slip out through a loop-hole----" She paused a moment, and then added, singing,-- The love that follows fain Will never its faith betray: But the faith that is held in a chain Will never be found again, If a single link give way.
The melody acted irresistibly on the harmonious propensities of the friar, who accordingly sang in his turn,-- For hark! hark! hark! The dog doth bark, That watches the wild deer's lair.
The hunter awakes at the peep of the dawn, But the lair it is empty, the deer it is gone, And the hunter knows not where.
Matilda and the friar then sang together,-- Then follow, oh follow! the hounds do cry: The red sun flames in the eastern sky: The stag bounds over the hollow.
He that lingers in spirit, or loiters in hall, Shall see us no more till the evening fall, And no voice but the echo shall answer his call: Then follow, oh follow, follow: Follow, oh follow, follow! During the process of this harmony, the baron's eyes wandered from his daughter to the friar, and from the friar to his daughter again, with an alternate expression of anger differently modified: when he looked on the friar, it was anger without qualification; when he looked on his daughter it was still anger, but tempered by an expression of involuntary admiration and pleasure.

These rapid fluctuations of the baron's physiognomy--the habitual, reckless, resolute merriment in the jovial face of the friar,--and the cheerful, elastic spirits that played on the lips and sparkled in the eyes of Matilda,--would have presented a very amusing combination to Sir Ralph, if one of the three images in the group had not absorbed his total attention with feelings of intense delight very nearly allied to pain.

The baron's wrath was somewhat counteracted by the reflection that his daughter's good spirits seemed to show that they would naturally rise triumphant over all disappointments; and he had had sufficient experience of her humour to know that she might sometimes be led, but never could be driven.