Then she brought forth victual and wine from Habundia's store, and
set it out on the stream-side; and thereafter she went up the bent to
the green way and fetched down Hugh and Arthur, and brought them to
the ladies, and bade them note how trim and lovely they were gotten
again, and again it could scarce be but that kisses and caresses were
toward; and in all content and love they took their breakfast, though
bitter-sweet unto Atra had been the holding of her hand by Arthur and
the kissing of her cheek, albeit not for worlds had she foregone it.
So there they abode merrily for some three hours, whereas the day was
yet young; and they asked and told each other much, so that the whole
tale, both of the seekers from the world and of the seekers from the
water-side, came out little by little. Now of the last ye have heard
what there is to tell, but for the others Viridis took up the tale,
as erst she did with the dealings of the Knights of the Quest in the
Isle of Increase Unsought; and it seemed by her tale that Hugh and
the ladies, though they were living happily and prosperously in the
land of the Green Mountains, wherein Hugh had wealth enow, yet the
thought both of Arthur and of Birdalone would not out of their minds,
and often it was that they thought of them, not as friends think of
friends of whom they are content to know that they are yet alive and
most-like thriving, but as friends think of friends whose absence
cuts a shard out of their lives, so that they long to see them day by
day.
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