'
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:
'Guest, thou seemest to wonder that I know concerning thee and the
Dale and thy kindred. But now shalt thou wot that I have been in the
Dale once and again, and my brother oftener still; and that I have
seen thee before yesterday.'
'That is marvellous,' quoth he, 'for sure am I that I have not seen
thee.
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