to Orleans, where they
found the bearing of the people again changed, and that for the worse.

"It behoves your learned and professional shoulders to be decorated once
more with the green cloth and fur trimmings of the Sorbonne," said
Jean-aux-Choux. "I can smell a Leaguer a mile off, and this city is
full of them. Our Scots Guards have turned off on the road to Blois.
There are too many bishops and clergy here for honest men. Besides
which, the King has a chateau at Blois. We had better change my
saddle-cloth--though 'twill be to my disadvantage--inasmuch as an
archer's tabard, all gold embroidering, makes noways so easy sitting as
fox fur and Angouleme green."

So it chanced that when they rode up to the low door of the Hostelry of
the Golden Lark, in the market-place of Orleans, the Professor of
Eloquence was again clad in his official attire, and led the way as
became a Doctor of the Sorbonne in a Leaguer town.

It was a pretty pink-and-white woman who welcomed them with many
courtesies and smiles to the Golden Lark--that is, so far as the men
were concerned, while preserving a severe and doubtful demeanour towards
the niece of the learned Professor of the Sorbonne. Madame Gillifleur
loved single men, unaccompanied men, at her hostelry. She found that
thus there was much less careful examination of accounts when it came to
the hour of departure.

Still, all the same, it was a great thing to have in her house so
learned a man, and in an hour, as was the custom of the town, she had
sent his name and style to the Bishop's palace. Within two hours the
Bishop's secretary, a smart young cleric dressed in the Italian fashion,
with many frills to his soutane, was bearing the invitation of his
master to the gentlemen to visit him in his study. This, of course,
involved leaving Claire behind, for Anatole Long ordered the Abbe John
to accompany him, while the girl declared that, with Jean-aux-Choux to
keep her company, she had fear of nothing and nobody.

She had not, however, taken her account with the curiosity of Madame
Celeste Gillifleur, who, as soon as the men were gone to the episcopal
palace, entered the room where Claire was seated at her knitting, while
Jean-aux-Choux read aloud the French Genevan Bible.

Cabbage Jock deftly covered the small quarto volume with a collection of
songs published (as usual) at the Hague.

"The fairer the hostess the fouler the soup!" muttered Jean, as he
retired into a corner, hu