If I had any thought of Sexberga now, it was as if she had been my sister, and I hoped that she would be pleased with the maiden who was thus brought to her unlooked for.

I need have troubled nought about that, however, for she and her mother were alike in many things, and if I was sure of the one, so might I have been of the other in all that had to do with kindness.
But if I had looked beyond Sexberga to where her young thane stood I should have met with a black scowl enough, though I could not have told why this should be his greeting for me.

I had but seen him once before, and that was at Earl Wulfnoth's feast to Olaf when we first came.
That was an evening to be remembered as most pleasant when, after the feast, we sat and spoke of all that had happened since I left Penhurst.

I told them all the tale of warfare, and of Olaf's deeds, and of the winning back of my sword, and how that helped our meeting with Egil.
And when Spray the smith, who sat listening, with the other men in the hall below the high place, heard of that escape from the Danes, he said, without ceremony: "Master, well I knew that you would never be cast into prison." "That was a saying of yours, Spray," said I."May the luck last." Then Uldra would tell the story of our journey in her way, and my name came pretty often into her tale.

So, looking about the hall while she spoke, my eyes lit on Eldred, and it seemed that he was ill at ease, and displeased with somewhat.