be carried out. Monks, priests, and clerks
were sent for, and they found plenty of work to do, and they worked
so well that the Abbess was soon cured, at which the nuns were right
joyous.

*****

STORY THE TWENTY-SECOND -- THE CHILD WITH TWO FATHERS. [22]

By Caron.

_Of a gentleman who seduced a young girl, and then went away and joined
the army. And before his return she made the acquaintance of another,
and pretended her child was by him. When the gentleman returned from the
war he claimed the child, but she begged him to leave it with her second
lover, promising that the next she had she would give to him, as is
hereafter recorded._

Formerly there was a gentleman living at Bruges who was so often and so
long in the company of a certain pretty girl that at last he made her
belly swell.

And about the same time that he was aware of this, the Duke called
together his men-at-arms, and our gentleman was forced to abandon his
lady-love and go with others to serve the said lord, which he willingly
did. But, before leaving, he provided sponsors and a nurse against the
time his child should come into the world, and lodged the mother with
good people to whose care he recommended her, and left money for her.
And when he had done all this as quickly as he could, he took leave of
his lady, and promised that, if God pleased, he would return quickly.

You may fancy if she wept when she found that he whom she loved better
than any one in the world, was going away. She could not at first speak,
so much did her tears oppress her heart, but at last she grew calmer
when she saw that there was nothing else to be done.

About a month after the departure of her lover, desire burned in her
heart, and she remembered the pleasures she had formerly enjoyed, and of
which the unfortunate absence of her friend now deprived her. The God of
Love, who is never idle, whispered to her of the virtues and riches of a
certain merchant, a neighbour, who many times, both before and since the
departure of her lover, had solicited her love, so that she decided
that if he ever returned to the charge he should not be sent away
discouraged, and that even if she met him in the street she would behave
herself in such a way as would let him see that she liked him.

Now it happened that the day after she arrived at this determination,
Cupid sent round the merchant early in the morning to present her with
dogs and birds and other gifts, which