Grisell spun and sewed for his outfit, with a strange sad pleasure in
working for him, and she was absolutely proud of him when he stood
before her, perfectly recovered, with the glow of health on his cheek
and a light in his eye, his length of limb arrayed in his own armour,
furbished and mended, his bright helmet alone new and of her own
providing (out of her mother's pearl necklace), his surcoat and
silken scarf all her own embroidering. As he truly said, he made a
much finer appearance than he had done on the morn of his melancholy
knighthood, in the poverty-stricken army of King Henry at
Northampton.
"Thanks," he said, with a courteous bow, "to his good friends and
hosts, who had a wonderful power over the purse." He added special
thanks to "Mistress Grisell for her deft stitchery," and she
responded with downcast face, and a low courtesy, while her heart
throbbed high.
Such a cavalier was sure of enlistment, and Leonard came to take
leave of his host, and announced that he had been sent off with his
friend to garrison Neufchatel, where the castle, being a border one,
was always carefully watched over.
His friends at Bruges rejoiced in his absence, since it prevented his
knowledge of the arrival of his beloved Queen Margaret and her son at
Sluys, with only seven attendants, denuded of almost everything,
having lost her last castles, and sometimes having had to exist on a
single herring a day.
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