When at night I bind my hair.'"

Beatrice paused. "Bodkin?" she said. "That's not the right word. Ladies don't fasten their hair with bodkins."

"Poets do not speak with the precision of grammarians. I suppose he should have said hairpin."

"Did they use hairpins in those days, then?"

"Without a doubt," replied Idris, being a little hazy on the point, nevertheless.

"Gudrun must have worn a very large hairpin, if she could liken a dagger to it."

"I suppose it was not very unlike the stiletto contrivances worn by ladies of the present day," answered Idris.

"''Tis the bodkin that I wear

When at night I bind my hair.'"