e sort it would be
better that his wife should frequent no more feasts.

A third time the perfidious Clerk sought the lady. On this occasion he
threatened her with death if she would not be his, but she replied in
the most spirited manner that she loved death a thousand times better
than him. At these words he could not contain his rage, and, drawing
his dagger, thrust fiercely at her head. But the lady's guardian angel
turned the stroke and the weapon struck harmlessly against the wall.
She fled from the room, closing the door behind her as she went;
whereupon the Clerk rushed downstairs to the nursery where her child
was quietly sleeping in its cradle, and, seeing no one beside it,
stabbed the slumbering infant to the heart.

Then he wrote to the Seigneur: "Hasten your return, I beg of you, for
it is necessary that you should be here to establish order. Your dog
and your white courser have perished, but that is not the worst. Your
little son, alas! is also dead. The great sow devoured him when your
wife was at a ball with the miller for a gallant."

When the Seigneur received this letter he returned at once from the
wars, his anger rising higher and higher with every homeward league.
When he arrived at the chateau he struck three times upon the door
with his hand, and his summons was answered by the Clerk.

"How now, evil Clerk," shouted the infuriated Count, "did I not leave
my wife in your care?" and with these words he thrust his lance into
the Clerk's open mouth, so that the point stood out at the nape of his
neck. Then, mounting the stairs, he entered his wife's chamber, and
without speaking a word stabbed her with his sword.

The ballad then goes on to speak of the burial of the victims of the
wicked Clerk. The lady, dressed all in white, was laid in her tomb by
the light of the moon and the stars. On her breast lay her little son,
on her right the favourite greyhound, and on her left the white
courser, and it is said that in her grave she first caresses one and
then the other, and the infant, as if jealous, nestles closer to his
mother's heart.

_The Lady of La Garaye_

The chateau of La Garaye, near Dinan, is rendered famous by the
virtues and boundless charity of its Count, Claude Toussaint Marot de
La Garaye, and his wife. Their interesting story is told in the
charming poem of Mrs Norton, _The Lady of La Garaye_:

Listen to the tale I tell,
Grave the story is--not sad;
And the peasant plo