ount
Ugolino's!"

"What was that?" demanded the miller, interested.

"A day without bread!" said the notary.

"Silence, Don Jordy," cried the Senora to her favourite son, "that
tongue of yours may plead well in a court, or for aught I know speak the
best of Latin before the wise of the earth, but that is no reason why
here, in this my house, it should go like the hopper of the Fanal Mill!"

"_Architae crepitaculum!_" said the notary, "you are right, mother
mine--the truly eloquent man, like our Sir Professor, keeps his
eloquence to practise on young maids by the sea-beach! But I have not
observed him fill his mouth with pebbles like his master."

"You are indeed but young things," said Claire, smiling at the Senora;
"I would not take any one of you from your mother--no, not at a gift."

"They are slow--slow, my sons," said the Senora, well pleased; "I fear
me they will be buried ere they be wed."

"Then we shall have small chance," cried the ruddy Don Jordy, "for
according to what I hear my betters say over yonder at the Bishop's
palace, in the place whither we are bound there is neither marrying nor
giving in marriage!"

"Good brother," said the Professor of Eloquence sententiously, "if you
do not mend your ways, you may find yourself where you will have little
time and less inclination for such like gauds!"

Meanwhile, without heeding their persiflage, the Senora pursued the even
tenor of her meditation. "Slow--slow," she said, "good lads all, but
slow."

"It was not our fault, but yours, that we are Long," declared that
hardened humorist, Don Jordy; "you married our father of your own free
will, as is the good custom of Roussillon. Blame us not then that we are
like Lambin."

"Lambin," cried his mother, "who was he? Some monkish rascal runagate
over there at the palace?"

"Nay, no runagate; he goes too slow ever to run," said Don Jordy. "Have
you never heard of Lambin our barber episcopal?

'Lambin, the barber, that model of gravity,
Shaving the chins of myself and my brother;
Handles his blade with such reverend suavity,
That ere one side is smooth--lo, 'tis rough on the other!'"

"And I," said the Mayor of Collioure, "have been this day with one who
goes fast enough, though perhaps he goes to the devil."

They looked at the miller in astonishment. It was but seldom that he
served himself with words so strong.

"A cousin of yours, my little lady," he added, looking at Claire.