Grave he always was, but with a ready smile and pleasant, in the right place, and though he was now about five-and-forty he had changed little to my eyes from what he was twelve years ago, when he saved me from the wolves.

He was one of those men who age but slowly.
One other on the high place I have not mentioned in this way.

That was Elfrida, the Somerset ealdorman's daughter, of whom it was said that she was the fairest maiden in all Wessex.

Certainly at this time I for one would have agreed in that saying.

She was two years younger than I, if I dare say it, and it seemed to me that in the last three years she had suddenly grown from the child that I used to play with to a very stately lady, well fitted to take the place of her mother, who used to be kind to me when I first came here as the queen's somewhat mischievous page, and had but died a year or so ago.