the saints in the division of their goods and mantles, which they gave
formerly to the poor and the passers-by. One day, returning from
Tours, where he had been paying his respects to the official, mounted
on his mule, he was nearing Azay. On the way, just out side Ballan, he
met a pretty girl on foot, and was grieved to see a woman travelling
like a dog; the more so as she was visibly fatigued, and could
scarcely raise one foot before the other. He whistled to her softly,
and the pretty wench turned round and stopped. The good priest, who
was too good a sportsman to frighten the birds, especially the hooded
ones, begged her so gently to ride behind him on his mule, and in so
polite a fashion, that the lass got up; not without making those
little excuses and grimaces that they all make when one invites them
to eat, or to take what they like. The sheep paired off with the
shepherd, the mule jogged along after the fashion of mules, while the
girl slipped now this way now that, riding so uncomfortably that the
priest pointed out to her, after leaving Ballan, that she had better
hold on to him; and immediately my lady put her plump arms around the
waist of her cavalier, in a modest and timorous manner.

"There, you don't slip about now. Are you comfortable?" said the
vicar.

"Yes, I am comfortable. Are you?"

"I?" said the priest, "I am better than that."

And, in fact, he was quite at his ease, and was soon gently warmed in
the back by two projections which rubbed against it, and at last
seemed as though they wished to imprint themselves between his
shoulder blades, which would have been a pity, as that was not the
place for this white merchandise. By degrees the movement of mule
brought into conjunction the internal warmth of these two good riders,
and their blood coursed more quickly through their veins, seeing that
it felt the motion of the mule as well as their own; and thus the good
wench and the vicar finished by knowing each other's thoughts, but not
those of the mule. When they were both acclimatised, he with her and
she with him, they felt an internal disturbance which resolved itself
into secret desires.

"Ah!" said the vicar, turning round to his companion, "here is a fine
cluster of trees which has grown very thick."

"It is too near the road," replied the girl. "Bad boys have cut the
branches, and the cows have eaten the young leaves."

"Are you not married?" asked the vicar, trotting his animal agai