id not
finish without plenty of drink.

Now you must know that the butcher's wife was acquainted with many of
the servants of these preachers, and she saw them pass her house, some
bearing wine, some pasties, some tarts, and so many other things that it
was wonderful.

She could not refrain from asking what feast was going forward at
their house? And the answer was that all this dainties were for such an
one,--that is to say her monk--who had some great people to dinner.

"And who are they?" she asked.

"Faith! I know not," he said. "I only carry my wine to the door, and
there our master takes it from us. I know not who is there!"

"I see," she said, "that it is a secret. Well, well! go on and do your
duty."

Soon there passed another servant, of whom she asked the same questions,
and he replied as his fellow had done, but rather more, for he said,

"I believe there is a damsel there;--but she wishes her presence to be
neither seen nor known."

She guessed who it was, and was in a great rage, and said to herself
that she would keep an eye upon the woman who had robbed her of the love
of her friend, and, no doubt, if she had met her she would have read her
a pretty lesson, and scratched her face.

She set forth with the intention of executing the plan she had
conceived. When she arrived at the place, she waited long to meet the
person she most hated in the world, but she had not the patience to wait
till her rival came out of the chamber where the feast was being held,
so at last she determined to use a ladder that a tiler, who was at work
at the roof, had left there whilst he went to dinner.

She placed this ladder against the kitchen chimney of the house, with
the intention of dropping in and saluting the company, for she knew well
that she could not enter in any other way.

The ladder being placed exactly as she wished it, she ascended it to
the chimney, round which she tied a fairly thick cord that by chance she
found there. Having tied that firmly, as she believed, she entered the
said chimney and began to descend; but the worst of it was that she
stuck there without being able to go up or down, however much she
tried--and this was owing to her backside being so big and heavy, and to
the fact that the cord broke, so that she could not climb back. She was
in sore distress, God knows, and did not know what to say or do. She
reflected that it would be better to await the arrival of the tiler, and
make an