“Should your boasted beauty,” said the Templar, “be weighed in the balance and found wanting, you know our wager?”

“My gold collar,” answered the Prior, “against ten butts of Chian wine;⁠—they are mine as securely as if they were already in the convent vaults, under the key of old Dennis the cellarer.”

“And I am myself to be judge,” said the Templar, “and am only to be convicted on my own admission, that I have seen no maiden so beautiful since Pentecost was a twelvemonth. Ran it not so?⁠—Prior, your collar is in danger; I will wear it over my gorget in the lists of Ashby-de-la-Zouche.”