"We need not ask him that," replied Cecilia: "the colour you now wear in your hairband, is that worn by the drost--last year, at least."
Drost Peter blushed deeply. "I wore it last year, because it was the queen's colour," he replied. "I won the right to do so at the Helsingborg tourney. But for twelve months before last May I have not worn it; although it has, since then, become dearer to me than ever. I fancy I have known from my childhood that crimson band, with the small pearl-lilies, and it is the only band I would suffer to bind me prisoner; but were Jomfru Ingé even now to present me with it, I dare not openly wear it. The reason, too, must remain a secret."
Lady Ingé had hastily raised her hand to the crimson fillet, as if she would remove it; but, on hearing Drost Peter's latter words, she only secured it more firmly, and changed the conversation to another subject.
"Look at my handsome, watchful bird," she said, merrily. "Had Hamlet possessed him, he would certainly have known how to make use of him." As she said this, she patted a large tame fowl that had flown towards her, alarmed, as it appeared, by Claus Skirmen, who was in search of his master, to inform him, as he had been ordered, of the state of the wind.
Drost Peter paid no attention to his squire's announcement. He praised the noble bird, and looked at his mistress with a singularly blended sentiment of joy and melancholy, while many fond memories of childhood flitted across his soul, and mingled with his feelings of the present moment. It almost seemed to him as if he were in a dream, and that the knight's tall, fair daughter was again changed into the child-bride of former days.
In the meantime Sir John, with his wife, was leisurely approaching the knoll. He stopped, and gazed at the young man on the green strand-height. "A fine, brave, excellent young man," he said, pointing to Drost Peter; "he is quite another drost than Sir Abildgaard. Our Cecilia's interest in that subtle knight does not please me. The suspicions that have attached to him, since his imprisonment, ought to have cured her of her whimsy. Has she not determined yet?"
"Your silence has made her anxious," replied the mother, with concern; "and, without your consent, she gives him no decisive answer."