o
near to her desire, she found him still more sweetly formed--and was
certain that the merry frolics of love would radiate well from this
youth, the warm sun, the silence, et cetera.

"Read me the litanies of Madame the Virgin," said she to him, pushing
an open book him on her prieu-dieu. "Let me see if you are well taught
by your master."

"Do you not think the Virgin beautiful?" asked she of him, smiling
when he held the illuminated prayer-book in which glowed the silver
and gold.

"It is a painting," replied he, timidly, and casting a little glance
upon his so gracious mistress.

"Read! read!"

Then Rene began to recite the so sweet and so mystic litanies; but you
may imagine that the "Ora pro nobis" of Blanche became still fainter
and fainter, like the sound of the horn in the woodlands, and when the
page went on, "Oh, Rose of mystery," the lady, who certainly heard
distinctly, replied by a gentle sigh. Thereupon Rene suspected that
his mistress slept. Then he commenced to cover her with his regard,
admiring her at his leisure, and had then no wish to utter any anthem
save the anthem of love. His happiness made his heart leap and bound
into his throat; thus, as was but natural, these two innocents burned
one against the other, but if they could have foreseen never would
have intermingled. Rene feasted his eyes, planning in his mind a
thousand fruitions of love that brought the water into his mouth. In
his ecstasy he let his book fall, which made him feel as sheepish as a
monk surprised at a child's tricks; but also from that he knew that
Blanche was sound asleep, for she did not stir, and the wily jade
would not have opened her eyes even at the greatest dangers, and
reckoned on something else falling as well as the book of prayer.

There is no worse longing than the longing of a woman in certain
condition. Now, the page noticed his lady's foot, which was delicately
slippered in a little shoe of a delicate blue colour. She had
angularly placed it on a footstool, since she was too high in the
seneschal's chair. This foot was of narrow proportions, delicately
curved, as broad as two fingers, and as long as a sparrow, tail
included, small at the top--a true foot of delight, a virginal foot
that merited a kiss as a robber does the gallows; a roguish foot; a
foot wanton enough to damn an archangel; an ominous foot; a devilishly
enticing foot, which gave one a desire to make two new ones just like
it to perpetuat