ear," said the judge, "I am going to hold the bodkin, of which
the eye is sufficiently large, to put this thread into it without
trouble. If you do put it in, I will take up your case, and will make
Monseigneur offer you a compromise."

"What's that?" said she. "I will not allow it."

"It is a word used in justice to signify an agreement."

"A compromise is then agreeable with justice?" said La Portillone.

"My dear, this violence has also opened your mind. Are you ready?"

"Yes," said she.

The waggish judge gave the poor nymph fair play, holding the eye
steady for her; but when she wished to slip in the thread that she had
twisted to make straight, he moved a little, and the thread went on
the other side. She suspected the judge's argument, wetted the thread,
stretched it, and came back again. The judge moved, twisted about, and
wriggled like a bashful maiden; still this cursed thread would not
enter. The girl kept trying at the eye, and the judge kept fidgeting.
The marriage of the thread could not be consummated, the bodkin
remained virgin, and the servant began to laugh, saying to La
Portillone that she knew better how to endure than to perform. Then
the roguish judge laughed too, and the fair Portillone cried for her
golden crowns.

"If you don't keep still," cried she, losing patience; "if you keep
moving about I shall never be able to put the thread in."

"Then, my dear, if you had done the same, Monseigneur would have been
unsuccessful too. Think, too, how easy is the one affair, and how
difficult the other."

The pretty wench, who declared she had been forced, remained
thoughtful, and sought to find a means to convince the judge by
showing how she had been compelled to yield, since the honour of all
poor girls liable to violence was at stake.

"Monseigneur, in order that the bet made the fair, I must do exactly
as the young lord did. If I had only had to move I should be moving
still, but he went through other performances."

"Let us hear them," replied the judge.

Then La Portillone straightens the thread, and rubs it in the wax of
the candle, to make it firm and straight; then she looked towards the
eye of the bodkin, held by the judge, slipping always to the right or
to the left. Then she began making endearing little speeches, such as,
"Ah, the pretty little bodkin! What a pretty mark to aim at! Never did
I see such a little jewel! What a pretty little eye! Let me put this
little thread into