dow, but spoke not a word; and the armed man also gazed upon it in silence, as he stood with his arms folded on his mail-covered breast. No sound for a few moments broke in upon the marble stillness of the apartment; to Edith every thing around seemed listening, as if the very room had become possessed of feeling, and waited in suspense the progress of the sunbeam that was passing over the parchment. maiden drew her breath quicker, as the document on which she was to have signed her fate grew darker. Once she dared to raise her lovely eyes to the helmet of her opponent, but no sign of relenting was to be found there. Her glance was returned; and then the cold collected eyes, which gleamed through the barry visor, fell again upon the parchment.

The

At length a noise was heard in the adjoining room, which was divided from that in which Edith so calmly awaited her fate; by a strong partition of oaken planks, so closely fitted together as to defy the keenest glance, saving at the top, and beyond any but a giant's height to overlook, where one of the strong boards had been removed. In this apartment Dame Long Glen was busied in setting out her best fare for

the earl and his companion, both of whom had entered at that period of time when Edith and her mailed companion were anxiously watching the declining sunbeam.

Scarcely had the two knights seated themselves at the massy oaken table, which was covered with good substantial cheer, before they were startled by a loud shriek from behind the partition, and heard a voice exclaiming,

"Help! help! Villain, unhand me. Is there no one to take the part of a helpless maiden? Help!" and a shuffling of feet was heard, as if the opposing parties were struggling with each other.

Both the knights sprang from their seats in an instant, the Earl of Eltham with the naked dagger in his hand which he was in the act of plunging into a large eel-pasty; his companion stood with his sword unsheathed, his head thrown back, and his eyes staring wildly, as if he had been startled by an apparition, or a voice from the grave. As he listened for a moment he exclaimed,

"By my hope in God! that was the voice of Edith of Lincoln calling for aid."

"Thou art mad to say so," said the earl;

"hearken once again. When hast thou ever heard her voice, or how comest thou to know her?"

They listened, and heard a rough voice say, "Thy struggles are useless here, maiden. They who hear thee will be more ready to aid in bearing thee away, than take thy part. Thou hadst best submit to thy fate quietly, for it grieveth me to have recourse to this force; but John of Chester awaits thee at the altar."

"Where I will never meet him," said Edith, and a sound was then heard as if one had fallen heavily on the floor, while the voice of the warrior exclaimed, "Rash girl, forbear! loose the dagger. Nay, then, thus will I ——— ”

"It is, it is Edith, my own betrothed! To the rescue, noble earl;" but the earl heard not the voice of his companion. Twice had he run at the oaken partition, and struck it with his foot with the force of a mountain-bull, until even the rafters above shook again with the blow. His companion also lent his assistance; but all their efforts were in vain, and like true knights they thought not of either danger or the door, as they continued to persevere at the mark. The stranger knight, however, who seemed the

most impatient to rescue the maiden; by a powerful thrust with his shoulder overturned the heavy oaken table, and scattered the good things with which it was covered over the floor of the apartment. In an instant the brave earl flew to his assistance, and by their united efforts they swung the massy block to and fro; as they held it by the strong and quaintly-carved legs. With almost the force of a huge batteringram came the weighty table-end against the oaken partition, which now began to creak and bend again like branches in the tempest.

The old dame had remained in the apartment, and heard the screams of the maiden as she called for aid, and witnessed the preparations of the knights for her rescue, in which she at last began to take as much interest as themselves. Nothing could be more ludicrous than her gestures of mingled grief and astonishment, when she witnessed the overthrow of the table, and all her choicest viands.

"Content ye, sir knights," said the old woman, when first they arose at the call for help, "content ye, and I will go round and see that the maiden cometh to no harm. Marry! how thou kickest," continued she, as the earl run

with full force at the wooden barrier. "By my troth! our old Hawthorn is nothing like thee for a kicker. Surely, if thou hadst fasted so long as thou hast said, thou couldst not kick with half that force. St. Cuthbert! if thou hadst but devoured a tithe of that pasty, my partition would have fallen before this. Holy Mother! art thou mad?" exclaimed she, when the young knight overthrew the huge table. "Gracious Heaven! it took six of our stoutest hinds to remove it, when we cleansed the floor after our last Christmas carousals; and here you come and wisp it over as if it were but a ducking-stool, and all the store of good things which I have set before you were no better than swine-mast. Mercy! would ye bring down the roof-tree on my head, and spoil all these provisions?" added she, stooping down to rescue a huge pasty which bore the foot-mark of the earl. "And here is a jar of honey as yellow as gold, and as sweet as ever bee gathered from woodbine or golden broom, strewing the floor as plentifully as hogs' blood at a killing-time, and I cannot save half a horn of it. And this pasty, filled with the whitest silver-bellied eels that ever made a blob in the Lene; and the crust,