So I told him what was on my mind, for he was at the feast last night.
"It is all that vow of mine," I said.

"I have just met Elfrida, and she is angry with me for naming her at all." "Unfair," said the abbot.

"You could not have helped it, seeing that you were bidden to do so." I had forgotten that, and it was possible that Elfrida did not know it.

So I said that I did not look for quite the scorn I had met with, at all events.

Whereon the abbot stayed in his walk and asked more, trying to look grave as he heard me, and soon he had all the story.
"So you carried the basket like any thrall, and had my Yuletide gift to her in payment," he said, with his eyes twinkling; "I will ask if she has lost it presently, and you will be avenged." He laughed again, and then said more gravely, but with a smile not far off: "Go to, Oswald, don't ask me to make the ways of a damsel plain to you, for that was more than Solomon himself could compass.