ed, and who,
intellectually considered, could have been little more than children.

"Take Nebuchadnezzar." I am still quoting the Professor. "Nowadays we
should put him into a strait-waistcoat. Had he lived in Northern
Europe instead of Southern Asia, legend would have told us how some
Kobold or Stromkarl had turned him into a composite amalgamation of a
serpent, a cat and a kangaroo." Be that as it may, this passion for
change--in other people--seems to have grown upon Malvina until she
must have become little short of a public nuisance, and eventually it
landed her in trouble.

The incident is unique in the annals of the White Ladies, and the
chroniclers dwell upon it with evident satisfaction. It came about
through the betrothal of King Heremon's only son, Prince Gerbot, to the
Princess Berchta of Normandy. Malvina seems to have said nothing, but
to have bided her time. The White Ladies of Brittany, it must be
remembered, were not fairies pure and simple. Under certain conditions
they were capable of becoming women, and this fact, one takes it, must
have exerted a disturbing influence upon their relationships with
eligible male mortals. Prince Gerbot may not have been altogether
blameless. Young men in those sadly unenlightened days may not, in
their dealings with ladies, white or otherwise, have always been the
soul of discretion and propriety. One would like to think the best of
her.

But even the best is indefensible. On the day appointed for the
wedding she seems to have surpassed herself. Into what particular
shape or form she altered the wretched Prince Gerbot; or into what
shape or form she persuaded him that he had been altered, it really, so
far as the moral responsibility of Malvina is concerned, seems to be
immaterial; the chronicle does not state: evidently something too
indelicate for a self-respecting chronicler to even hint at. As,
judging from other passages in the book, squeamishness does not seem to
have been the author's literary failing, the sensitive reader can feel
only grateful for the omission. It would have been altogether too
harrowing.

It had, of course, from Malvina's point of view, the desired effect.
The Princess Berchta appears to have given one look and then to have
fallen fainting into the arms of her attendants. The marriage was
postponed indefinitely, and Malvina, one sadly suspects, chortled. Her
triumph was short-lived.

Unfortunately for her, King Heremon h