d delicate hand, more is gained with women by
taking things for granted than by the smoothest tongue and longest
Jacob-and-Rachael service. The man who succeeds with good women is the
man who takes things for granted. Only he must know exactly what things,
otherwise I am mortally sorry for him--he will have a rough road to
travel. But to my tale.

Jorian ushered Ysolinde and Helene into the rooms from which he had so
unceremoniously ousted the former tenants. How these chambers were
lighted in the daytime I could not at first make out, but by going to the
end of the long earth-hewn passage and leaning out of a window the
mystery was made plain. The ravine took an abrupt turn at this point, so
that we were in a house built round an angle, and so had the benefit of
light from both sides.

"And where are our rooms to be?" I asked of the stout soldier when
he returned.

Jorian pointed to the plain, hard earth of the passage.

"That is poor lodging for tired bones!" I said; "have they no other rooms
to let anywhere in this hostelry?"

He laughed again; indeed, he seemed to be able to do little else whenever
he spoke to me.

"Tired bones will lie the stiller!" said he, at last, sententiously.
"There is some wheaten straw out there which you can bring in for a
bolster, if you will. But I think it likely that we shall get no more
sleep than the mouse in the cat's dining-room this night. These border
rascals are apt to be restless in the dark hours, and their knives prick
most consumedly sharp!"

With that he went out, leaving the doors into the passages all open, and
presently I could hear him raging and rummaging athwart the house,
ordering this one to find him "Graubunden fleisch," the next to get him
some good bread, and not to attempt to palm off "cow-cake" upon honest
soldiers on pain of getting his stomach cut open--together with other
amenities which occur easily to a seasoned man-at-arms foraging in an
unfriendly country.

Then, having returned successful from this quest, what was my admiration
to see Jorian (whom I had so lately called, and I began to be sorry for
it, a Wendish pig) strip his fine soldier's coat and hang it upon a peg
by the door, roll up his sleeves, and set to at the cooking in the great
open fireplace with swinging black crooks against the front wall, while
Boris stood on guard with a long pistolet ready in the hollow of his arm,
and his slow-match alight, by the doorway of the ladies' apa