For, as the Maid passed, I doffed my cap and waved it, since to shout "Noel" with the rest, I dared not, because of my infirmity.

Now, it so fell that, glancing around, she saw and knew me, and bowed to me, with a gesture of her hand, as queenly as if she, a manant's child, had been a daughter of France.

At that moment, noting the Maid's courtesy towards me, Charlotte stood up from beside me, with a handful of red roses, which she threw towards her.

As it chanced, belike because she was proud to be with one whom the Maid honoured, or to steady herself as she threw, she laid her left hand about my neck, and so standing, cast her flowers, and then looked laughing back into my eyes, with a happy face.

The roses missed the Maid, whose horse caracoled at that moment as she went by, but they lit in the lap of a damsel that rode at her rein, on a lyart {28} palfrey, and she looking up, I saw the face of Elliot, and Elliot saw me, and saw Charlotte leaning on me and laughing.