He had got rid of his most troublesome guests.

His uncle James of Avondale, his red cousin of Angus, the grave ill-assorted figure of the Abbot of Dulce Cor, had all vanished.

Only the young and chivalrous remained,--his cousins, William and James, Hugh and Archibald, good lances all and excellent fellows to boot.

It was also a most noble chance that the French ambassador was confined by the quinsy, for it was certainly pleasant to ride out alone with that beauteous head glancing so near his shoulder, to watch at will the sun crimsoning yet more the red lips, sparkling in the eyes that were bright as sunshine slanting through green leaves on a water-break, and to mark as he fell a pace behind how every hair of that luxuriant coif rippled golden and separate, like a halo of Florentine work about the head of a saint.
The Lady Sybilla de Thouars was merry also, but with what a different mirth to that of Mistress Maud Lindesay--at least so thought Captain Sholto MacKim, with a conscious glow of pride in his own Scottish sweetheart.
True, Sholto was scarce a fair judge in that he loved one and did not love the other.

He owned to himself in a moment of unusual candour that there might be something in that.