“In truth, Sir,” she murmured, “I do not know.”
“Not know! Why, but you said he was your friend.”
“Oh! so I did. And, now I come to think of it, he is a tall youth—about my size and make.”
“Gads! but he will be a shapely, if somewhat sapling gallant,” I laughed, letting my eye roam over the supple maiden figure before me.
“But though he be so slim,” the girl hastened to add, as if she feared she had been indiscreet, “you will find the youth a rare good horseman, and clever in many things. He can cook (if thou art ever belated) like a Frenchman, and can read missals to thee, and write like a monk—thy comrade, Sir knight, will be one in a thousand—he can sing like a mavis on a fir-top.”
“I like not these singing knights, fair maid: their verses are both too smooth for soldier ears, and too licentious for maidens’.”
“Ah! but my friend,” quoth Isobel, with a blush, “never sang an ungentle song in his life; you will find him a most civil, most simple-spoken companion.”
“Well, then, I will have him—no doubt we shall grow as close together as boon companions should.”
“Would that you might grow so close together as I could wish!” said the English girl, with a sigh I did not understand.
“And now, how am I to know this friend,” I asked, “this slim and gentle youth? What is his name, and what his face?”