Nor did
he refuse to acknowledge, on Ridley's representation, that Grisell
ought to have an attendant of her own, and the lady of the castle,
coming down with Bernard clinging to her skirt with one hand, and
leaning on his crutch, consented. "If the maid was to be here, she
must be treated fitly, and Bell and Madge had enough to do without
convent-bred fancies."
So Cuthbert descended the steep path to the ravine where dwelt the
fisher folk, and came back with a girl barefooted, bareheaded, with
long, streaming, lint-white locks, and the scantiest of garments,
crying bitterly with fright, and almost struggling to go back. She
was the orphan remnant of a family drowned in the bay, and was a
burthen on her fisher kindred, who were rejoiced thus to dispose of
her.
She sobbed the more at sight of the grisly lady, and almost screamed
when Grisell smiled and tried to take her by the hand. Ridley fairly
drove her upstairs, step by step, and then shut her in with his young
lady, when she sank on the floor and hid her face under all her
bleached hair.
"Poor little thing," thought Grisell; "it is like having a fresh-
caught sea-gull. She is as forlorn as I am, and more afraid!"
So she began to speak gently and coaxingly, begging the girl to look
up, and assuring her that she would not be hurt. Grisell had a very
soft and persuasive voice. Her chief misfortune as regarded her
appearance was that the muscles of one cheek had been so drawn that
though she smiled sweetly with one side of her face, the other was
contracted and went awry, so that when the kind tones had made the
girl look up for a moment, the next she cried, "O don't--don't! Holy
Mary, forbid the spell!"
"I have no spells, my poor maid; indeed I am only a poor girl, a
stranger here in my own home.
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