to the ladies who
desired these hideous animals for their amusement. At his feet
gamboled a dwarf that squeaked and screeched, distorting its face in
hideous grimaces. Scattered about the room, singing, bawling or
brawling, were indigent morris dancers; bare-footed minstrels; a
pinched and needy versificator; a reduced mountebank; a swarthy clown,
with a hare's mouth; joculators of the streets, poor as rats and living
as such, straitened, heedless fellows, with heads full of nonsense and
purses empty, poor in pocket, but rich in _plaisanterie_.

Upon the table, with cards in her lap, which she studied idly, sat a
hard-featured, deep-bosomed woman, neither old nor uncomely, with
thick, black hair, coarse as a horse's mane, cheeks red as a berry,
glowing with health. In her pose was a certain savage grace, an
untrammeled freedom which revealed the vigorous outlines of a
well-proportioned figure. Her eye was bright as a diamond and bold as
a trooper's; when she lifted her head she looked disdainfully,
scornfully, fiercely, upon the strange and monstrous company of which
she was queen.

"Where can the thief-friar be?" muttered the student. "He is usually
not far off from sweet Nanette."

"You mean the monk who had a hand in your nuptials?"

"Who else? He, the source of all ill. He who gave her the money of
which she e'en presented me a moiety. Whoever employed him--was it
your friends, gentle sir?--rewarded him with gold. Being a craven
rogue, I e'en suspect him of shifting the task to myself for a beggarly
pittance, whilst he is off with the lion's share."

The jester, watching the company within, made no reply. From the
student to the woman, to the friar, was a chain leading--where? He
found it not difficult to surmise. Suddenly Nanette threw down the
cards and laughed harshly.

"Neither the devil nor his imps could read the things that are
happening in the castle!"

Then abruptly springing from the table, she made her way to the fire,
over which hung a pot of some savory stew, a magnet to the company's
sharp desire; for throughout all the boisterous merriment wandering
glances had invariably returned to it. To reach the kettle and make
herself mistress of the culinary preparations, she cuffed a dwarf with
such vigor that he hobbled howling from a suspicious proximity to the
appetizing mess to a safe refuge beneath the table. With equally
dauntless spirit, she pushed aside the herculean morio who ha