"Yes," replied Margaret, in delight, "and she seemed pleased with the embroidery. O, Stephen, she is so beautiful! She looks like an angel! Does she not, mother?"
"She has beauty, Margaret," answered Edith, "but it is not the beauty of an angel—it has too much of pride."
"But all ladies are proud, mother! I warrant she is not prouder than another."
"May be not, Margaret; but yet that lady who sat at her side, looked not so high as the baroness. There was more sweetness in her smile, and gentleness in her voice."
"O yes, she spoke very sweetly, but she is not so handsome as the baron's lady."
"Margaret," replied Edith; "when you are as old as I, you will not look upon beauty as you do now;—a gentle heart and a pallid cheek will seem lovelier then, than brightness and bloom, if there be pride on the brow. But, Stephen, what said the steward when you gave him the gold?"
"Oh, he said mine was the best gift that had been brought yet. But come, mother, it is time we were at home."
The Lady de Boteler, Lady Anne Hammond, and the other ladies, were admiring the embroidered gloves, when De Boteler and Sir Robert Knowles entered the apartment.
"See, Roland," said the baroness, holding the gloves towards her husband; "see, what a pretty gift I have received since you left us!"
"They are indeed pretty," answered De Boteler; "and the fair hands that wrought them deserve praise. What think you, Sir Robert?"