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124 Then, as the scald flushed in confusion, she added kindly: “Nay! nay! it was but a jest. Thy heart hath been all thy king’s. Thou wouldst ask shelter for the maid among my women. It shall be gladly given; and for the old jarl there shall be full welcome, too. Bid them come to me now.”

Thorgills went back to the banquet hall, and pressently returned with Fiachtna and Maidoch.

Lady Aastrid greeted them graciously. She bade them sit down while she asked them of their adventures and trials. Fiachtna told of the attack upon his home by the Danes, the pillage and burning of his castle and the capture of his daughter and himself and some young men on his estate. As her father rehearsed the sad scenes through which she had passed, Maidoch’s expressive face showed how keenly she had suffered.

“How beautiful she is!” thought the Lady Aastrid, “and what grace and courtesy hath the old jarl! The girl is, of a truth, a winsome maid, and I marvel not that our faithful Thorgills, Olaf’s own shadow in peace and in peril, hath set the music of his soul to the thought of this gentle maiden.”

Aloud she said, laying her hand caressingly on Maidoch’s arm, “Thou hast seen many sorrows in thy brief life, but I wot thy dark days are over. God hath denied me son or daughter, and if thou wilt come to me, I will rest my heart upon thee, as a mother loves to rest upon a dutiful daughter. Thou