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THE PILGRIM.

ON a wintry night, in that remote period when Matilda, or Maud, was contending with Stephen of Blois for the crown of England, a faint tap was heard at the door of a Saxon farmer. The wife of the farmer was alone; but she did not hesitate to give admission to the applicant, though the times were troublesome, and the soldiers of Stephen, quartered in the vicinity, were understood to be engaged in some attack that night. The stranger entered, habited like a pilgrim bound for Palestine, or returning thence. The dame offered him such hospitality as her house could afford; and though her eye did not violate the reverent courtesy due to a palmer, by gazing at him, yet her curiosity was keenly excited, and, by stolen glances, she had soon taken an exact inventory of the person and dress of her guest.

He was small for a man, with a brunette complexion, but of remarkably soft skin and

delicate features. His voice and manner were peculiarly gentle, and there was a raven gloss about the ringlets of his hair, that stole out from the pilgrim hat, which gave him a femWomen are not easily de

inine appearance. ceived by women.

Men cheat them, for love comes in to blind the lynx-eyed sagacity of the sex. Not so with each other: the wily mirror of the heart suggests and detects the artifices of their kind, whom they always regard as spies and rivals. The Saxon wife, therefore, soon penetrated the disguise of the seeming pilgrim, and had no difficulty in making her out to be a woman, young, beautiful, and high bred. The rumor had come to her ears, that an attack was to be made upon a convent in the vicinity, supposed to be friendly to Maud; and she had no great difficulty in conjecturing that the attack had been made, and that the stranger was one of the inmates who had escaped from the stour. With these ideas floating in her brain, she began to put fishing questions, and soon learned that all her conjectures were right. She also ascertained that the fugitive was a niece of the queen; that her name was Blanch; and that she was betrothed to Eustace St. Maur,

a Norman knight, whose deeds of valor had filled the wonder-loving ear of the people of that day with delight.

What was now to be done? The Saxon dame conceived a strong interest in behalf of the maiden, excited partly by her personal loveliness, and partly by her danger and distress. Her husband was a stanch friend to Stephen, and was in fact a sort of commissary in his service, his duty being to supply his table with such luxuries as the gardens and parks in the vicinity could produce. The king's castle was not far distant, and the Saxon had frequent and familiar intercourse with the people in and about it. He was therefore attached to the king by his interest, and by his habits of thought and action.

To undertake to bring him into any scheme of escape for Blanch, was out of the question : indeed, it was not deemed safe to intrust him with the fact that she was in the house. After canvassing several plans, it was decided that the two females should immediately set out on foot, and endeavor to reach a village at the distance of seven miles, where it was known that Eustace St. Maur was posted with a troop of

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