father, who had taken a violent fancy
to the proffered domain. "I give him to you for a husband. You must
get on as well as you can together. That is his business now, and his
duty is to make himself agreeable to you."

"Is it so?" said she. "Well then, before I obey your orders I'll let
him know what he may expect."

And the same evening, after supper, when the love-sick man of law was
pleading his cause, telling her he was mad for her, and promising her
a life of ease and luxury, she taking him up, quickly remarked--

"My father had sold me to you, but if you take me, you will make a bad
bargain, seeing that I would rather offer myself to the passers-by
than to you. I promise you a disloyalty that will only finish with
death--yours or mine."

Then she began to weep, like all young maidens will before they become
experienced, for afterwards they never cry with their eyes. The good
advocate took this strange behaviour for one of those artifices by
which the women seek to fan the flames of love and turn the devotion
of their admirers into the more tender caress and more daring
osculation that speaks a husband's right. So that the knave took
little notice of it, but laughing at the complaints of the charming
creature, asked her to fix the day.

"To-morrow," replied she, "for the sooner this odious marriage takes
place, the sooner I shall be free to have gallants and to lead the gay
life of those who love where it pleases them."

Thereupon the foolish fellow--as firmly fixed as a fly in a glue pot
--went away, made his preparations, spoke at the Palace, ran to the
High Court, bought dispensations, and conducted his purchase more
quickly than he ever done one before, thinking only of the lovely girl.
Meanwhile the king, who had just returned from a journey, heard
nothing spoken of at court but the marvellous beauty of the jeweller's
daughter who had refused a thousand crowns from this one, snubbed that
one; in fact, would yield to no one, but turned up her nose at the
finest young men of the city, gentlemen who would have forfeited their
seat in paradise only to possess one day, this little dragon of
virtue.

The good king, was a judge of such game, strolled into the town, past
the forges, and entered the goldsmith's shop, for the purpose of
buying jewels for the lady of his heart, but at the same time to
bargain for the most precious jewel in the shop. The king not taking a
fancy to the jewels, or they not being t