She sprang on her steed, from the mounting-stone beside the door, and so, waving her hand, she cried farewell to Elliot, that stood gazing after her with shining eyes.

The people went after the Maid some way, shouting Noel! and striving to kiss her stirrup, the archers laughing, meanwhile, and bidding them yield way.

And so we came, humbly enough, into the house, where, her father being present and laughing and the door shut, Elliot threw her arms about me and wept and smiled on my breast.
"Ah, now I must lose you again," she said; whereat I was half glad that she prized me so; half sorry, for that I knew I might not go forth with the host.

This ill news I gave them both, we now sitting quietly in the great chamber.
"Nay, thou shalt go," said Elliot.

"Is it not so, father?
For the Maid gave her promise ere she went to Poictiers, and now she is fulfilling it.
For the gentle King has given her a household--pages, and a maitre d'hotel, a good esquire, and these two gentlemen who rode with her from Vaucouleurs, and an almoner, Brother Jean Pasquerel, an Augustine, that the Maid's mother sent with us from Puy, for we found her there.