noon
In due course June passed its middle , and the Queen rode under the Downs from Bramber to Amberley . And early on Midsummer Eve , while her servants made busy about the coming festival , Queen Maudlin went over the fields to the waterside and lay in the grass looking to Bury , and teased some seven of her court , each of whom had sworn to bring her the Crown of Beauty at his sword 's point on the morrow . Her four maidens were with her , all maids of great loveliness . There was Linoret who was like morning dew on grass in spring , and Clarimond queenly as day at its noon , and Damarel like a rose grown languorous of its own grace , and Amelys , mysterious as the spirit of dusk with dreams in its hair . But Maudlin was the pale gold wonder of the dawn , a creature of ethereal light , a vision of melting stars and wakening flowers . And she delighted in making seem cheap the palpable prettiness of this , or too robust the fuller beauty of that , or dim and dull the elusive charm of such-an-one . She would have scorned to set her beauty to compete with those who were not beautiful , even as a proved knight would scorn to joust with an unskilled boor .