Hark you, father! I made a vow to God when I was a maid, and I have fulfilled my side of the bargain.

I am come of a nobler race than any Markgrave, aye, than the Emperor himself, and I swore to set the seed of my body, which the Lord might grant me, again among the great ones.

Have I not done it?
Is not Philip, my son, affianced to that pale girl of Avesnes, and with more acres of pleasant land to his name than any knightlet in Artois ?" The Cluniac bowed a courtly head.

"It is a great alliance--but not above the dignity of your house." "House you call it, and I have had the making of it.

What was Willebald but a plain merchant-man, one of many scores at the Friday Market?
Willebald was clay that I moulded and gilded till God put him to bed under a noble lid in the New Kirk.