queer touch of fanatic gravity: "My dear, you are perfectly right. I was
tempted, I grant you. But it was never reasonable that gentlefolk should
cheat at their dicing. Therefore I whispered Roger Bulmer my final
decision; and he is now loosing all my captives in the courtyard of
Mezelais, after birching the tails of every one of them as soundly as
these infants' pranks to-night have merited. So you perceive that I do
not profit by my trick; and that I lose Guienne, after all, in order to
come to you with hands--well! not intolerably soiled."

"Oh, now I love you!" she cried, a-thrill with disappointment to find
him so unthriftily high-minded. "Yet you have done wrong, for Guienne is
a king's ransom."

He smiled whimsically, and presently one arm swept beneath her knees, so
that presently he held her as one dandles a baby; and presently his
stiff and graying beard caressed her burning cheek. Masterfully he said:
"Then let Guienne serve as such and ransom for a king his glad and
common manhood. Now it appears expedient that I leave France without any
unwholesome delay, because these children may resent being spanked. More
lately--he, already I have in my pocket the Pope's dispensation
permitting me to marry, in spite of our cousinship, the sister of the
King of France."

Very shyly Dame Meregrett lifted her little mouth. She said nothing
because talk was not necessary.

In consequence, after a deal of political tergiversation (Nicolas
concludes), in the year of grace 1299, on the day of our Lady's
nativity, and in the twenty-seventh year of King Edward's reign, came to
the British realm, and landed at Dover, not Dame Blanch, as would have
been in consonance with seasoned expectation, but Dame Meregrett, the
other daughter of King Philippe the Bold; and upon the following day
proceeded to Canterbury, whither on the next Thursday after came Edward,
King of England, into the Church of the Trinity at Canterbury, and
therein espoused the aforesaid Dame Meregrett.

THE END OF THE THIRD NOVEL

IV

THE STORY OF THE CHOICES

"Sest fable es en aquest mon
Semblans al homes que i son;
Que el mager sen qu'om pot aver
So es amar Dieu et sa mer,
E gardar sos comendamens."

THE FOURTH NOVEL.--YSABEAU OF FRANCE, DESIROUS OF DISTRACTION, LOOKS FOR
RECREATION IN THE TORMENT OF A CERTAIN KNIGHT, WHOM SHE PROVES TO BE NO
MORE THAN HUMAN; BUT IN THE OUTCOME OF HER HOLIDAY HE CONFOUNDS THIS
QUEEN BY THE WIT OF