voice come melting back to me with a "Hello, Hank!"
that was music of the spheres to my enchanted ear.
She got three dollars a week, but she was worth it.

I could not follow Alisande's further explanation
of who our captured knights were, now--I mean in
case she should ever get to explaining who they
were. My interest was gone, my thoughts were far
away, and sad. By fitful glimpses of the drifting
tale, caught here and there and now and then, I
merely noted in a vague way that each of these
three knights took one of these three damsels up
behind him on his horse, and one rode north, another
east, the other south, to seek adventures, and meet
again and lie, after year and day. Year and day--
and without baggage. It was of a piece with the
general simplicity of the country.

The sun was now setting. It was about three in
the afternoon when Alisande had begun to tell me
who the cowboys were; so she had made pretty good
progress with it--for her. She would arrive some
time or other, no doubt, but she was not a person
who could be hurried.

We were approaching a castle which stood on high
ground; a huge, strong, venerable structure, whose
gray towers and battlements were charmingly draped
with ivy, and whose whole majestic mass was
drenched with splendors flung from the sinking sun.
It was the largest castle we had seen, and so I thought
it might be the one we were after, but Sandy said no.
She did not know who owned it; she said she had
passed it without calling, when she went down to
Camelot.

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