She said: ‘Thou wert wise to naysay that offer; thou shalt have enough to do in the Dale and round about it in twelve months’ time.’
‘Art thou foresighted?’ said he.
‘Folk have called me so,’ she said, ‘but I wot not. But thy brother Hall-face, how fareth he?’
‘Well;’ said he, ‘to my deeming he is the Sword of our House, and the Warrior of the Dale, if the days were ready for him.’
‘And Stone-face, that stark ancient,’ she said, ‘doth he still love the Folk of the Dale, and hate all other folks?’
‘Nay,’ he said, ‘I know not that, but I know that he loveth as, and above all me and my father.’
Again she spake: ‘How fareth the Bride, the fair maid to whom thou art affianced?’
As she spake, it was to him as if his heart was stricken cold; but he put a force upon himself, and neither reddened nor whitened, nor changed countenance in any way; so he answered:
‘She was well the eve of yesterday.’ Then he remembered what she was, and her beauty and valour, and he constrained himself to say: ‘Each day she groweth fairer; there is no man’s son and no daughter of woman that does not love her; yea, the very beasts of field and fold love her.’
The Friend looked at him steadily and spake no word, but a red flush mounted to her cheeks and brow and changed her face; and he marvelled thereat; for still he misdoubted that she was a Goddess. But it passed away in a moment, and she smiled and said: