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256 repeated softly as if to herself. “A ship going to Ireland?”

“It is even so,” Aastrid answered, glancing away, for the yearning in Maidoch’s face touched the older woman almost to tears. Then she could be silent no longer. “Dear child,” she said, “dost thou so greatly crave to go back to thy own land?” Maidoch clasped her hands, closing her eyes. “Even so, then,” went on the kind voice, “I may be able to send thee back. King Olaf is despatching a ship to Ireland for more priests, and for skilled artificers to paint upon glass and steel. None have the skill of these Irish painters, and King Olaf spares no gold to have the finest work upon his new ship. The captain of the ship who goes to Ireland takes with him his wife and his daughters, and they could bear thee company to thy own land.”

Thy own land! Maidoch’s eyes grew starry in their happy light, and her lips opened in smiling answer. To go back to Ireland! Surely it were next to going to heaven!

Lady Aastrid noted the expression of the girl’s face that almost transfigured it, and she said, as if the matter were closed: “Then will I prepare for thy journey. Lord Thorgills, though he will be grieved at thy going, is too noble to hold thee against thy will, and he will of a surety release thee from thy troth.”

Maidoch stood up. Her face paled, and all the