nn do kiss us chambermaids; faugh! and what have we poor wretches to
set on t'other side the compt but now and then a nice young----? Alack!
time flies, chambermaids can't be spared long in the nursery, so how
is't to be?"

"An't please you arrange with my comrade for both. He is mulierose; I am
not."

"Nay, 'tis the curb he will want, not the spur. Well! well! you shall
to bed without paying the usual toll; and oh, but 'tis sweet to fall
in with a young man who can withstand these ancient ill customs, and
gainsay brazen hussies. Shalt have thy reward."

"Thank you! But what are you doing with my bed?"

"Me? oh, only taking off these sheets, and going to put on the pair the
drunken miller slept in last night."

"Oh, no! no! You cruel, black-hearted thing! There! there!"

"A la bonne heure! What will not perseverance effect? But note now the
frowardness of a mad wench! I cared not for't a button. I am dead sick
of that sport this five years. But you denied me; so then forthwith I
behoved to have it; belike had gone through fire and water for't. Alas,
young sir, we women are kittle cattle; poor perverse toads: excuse us:
and keep us in our place, savoir, at arm's length; and so good-night!"

At the door she turned and said, with a complete change of tone and
manner: "The Virgin guard thy head, and the holy Evangelists watch the
bed where lies a poor young wanderer far from home! Amen!"

And the next moment he heard her run tearing down the stairs, and soon a
peal of laughter from the salle betrayed her whereabouts.

"Now that is a character," said Gerard profoundly, and yawned over the
discovery.

In a very few minutes he was in a dry bath of cold, clean linen,
inexpressibly refreshing to him after so long disuse: then came a
delicious glow; and then--Sevenbergen.

In the morning Gerard awoke infinitely refreshed, and was for rising,
but found himself a close prisoner. His linen had vanished. Now this
was paralysis; for the nightgown is a recent institution. In Gerard's
century, and indeed long after, men did not play fast and loose with
clean sheets (when they could get them), but crept into them clothed
with their innocence, like Adam: out of bed they seem to have taken most
after his eldest son.

Gerard bewailed his captivity to Denys; but that instant the door
opened, and in sailed Marion with their linen, newly washed and ironed,
on her two arms, and set it down on the table.

"Oh you good girl," cr