TWO RIDING TOGETHER "Joyous," she cried, as they went, "Oh, most joyous would it be to see the noble castle and to have all the famous two thousand knights to make love to me at once! To capture two thousand hearts at one sweep of the net! What would Margaret of France herself say to that ?" "Is there no single heart sufficient to satisfy you, fair maid ?" said the young man, in a low voice; "none loyal enough nor large enough for you that you desire so many ?" "And what would I do with one if it were in my hands," she said wistfully; "that is, if it were a worthy heart and one worth the taking.

Ever since I was a child I have always broken my toys when I tired of them." The voices of the singing children on the green came more faintly to their ears, but the words were still clear to be understood.
_"Off to prison you must go, you must go, you must go, Off to prison you must go, My fair lady!"_ "You hear?
It is my fate!" she said.
"Nay," answered the Earl, passionately, still looking in her eyes.
"Mine, mine--not yours! Gladly I would go to prison or to death for the love of one so fair!" "My lord, my lord," she laughed, with a tolerant protest in her voice, "you keep up the credit of your house right nobly.

How goes the distich?
My mother taught it me upon the bridge of Avignon, where also as here in Scotland the children dance and sing." "First in the love of Woman, First in the field of fight, First in the death that men must die, Such is the Douglas' right!" "Here and now," he said, still looking at her, "'tis only the first I crave." "Earl William, positively you must come to Court!" she shrilled into sudden tinkling laughter; "there be ladies there more worthy of your ardour than a poor errant maiden such as I." "A Court," cried Earl William, scornfully, "to the Seneschal's court! Nay, truly.

Could a Stewart ever keep his faith or pay his debts?
Never, since the first of them licked his way into a lady's favour." "Oh," she answered lightly, "I meant not the Court of Stirling nor yet the Chancellor's Castle of Edinburgh.

I meant the only great Court--the Court of France, the Court of Charles the Seventh, the Court which already owns the sway of its rarest ornament, your own Scottish Princess Margaret." "Thither I cannot go unless the King of France grants me my father's rights and estates!" he said, with a certain sternness in his tone.
"Let me look at your hand," she answered, with a gentle inclination of her fair head, from which the lace that had shrouded it now streamed back in the cool wind of evening.
Stopping Darnaway, the young Earl gave the girl his hand, and the white palfrey came to rest close beneath the shoulder of the black war charger.
"To-morrow," she said, looking at his palm, "to-morrow you will be Duke of Touraine.