apartment had a cheerful appearance. Two or three large hounds were
reposing in front of the hearth, and among them sat little Richard of
Normandy, now smoothing down their broad silken ears; now tickling
the large cushions of their feet with the end of one of Osmond's
feathers; now fairly pulling open the eyes of one of the good-natured
sleepy creatures, which only stretched its legs, and remonstrated
with a sort of low groan, rather than a growl. The boy's eyes were,
all the time, intently fixed on Dame Astrida, as if he would not lose
one word of the story she was telling him; how Earl Rollo, his
grandfather, had sailed into the mouth of the Seine, and how
Archbishop Franco, of Rouen, had come to meet him and brought him the
keys of the town, and how not one Neustrian of Rouen had met with
harm from the brave Northmen. Then she told him of his grandfather's
baptism, and how during the seven days that he wore his white
baptismal robes, he had made large gifts to all the chief churches in
his dukedom of Normandy.

"Oh, but tell of the paying homage!" said Richard; "and how Sigurd
Bloodaxe threw down simple King Charles! Ah! how would I have
laughed to see it!"

"Nay, nay, Lord Richard," said the old lady, "I love not that tale.
That was ere the Norman learnt courtesy, and rudeness ought rather to
be forgotten than remembered, save for the sake of amending it. No,
I will rather tell you of our coming to Centeville, and how dreary I
thought these smooth meads, and broad soft gliding streams, compared
with mine own father's fiord in Norway, shut in with the tall black
rocks, and dark pines above them, and far away the snowy mountains
rising into the sky. Ah! how blue the waters were in the long summer
days when I sat in my father's boat in the little fiord, and--"