eign sickness, so that when they were already on
horseback she had come and said that she could not go with them. But
now, seeing that the hour at which the Prince should have come was gone
by, he said to his sister-in-law--

"I think we may now return to the town."

2 The French word here is _cabinet_, which some English
translators have rendered as "little room." We think,
however, with the Bibliophile Jacob, that the allusion is to
an article of furniture, such as we ourselves still call a
cabinet in England, though in France the word has virtually
lost that sense.--Ed.

3 The MSS. do not say whether she rode on a pillion, or
simply bestrode the horse. This last fashion was still
common at this period and long afterwards, even among women
of high degree. See, for instance, several of the enamels in
the Louvre, notably one which depicts Henry II. of France
with Diana of Poitiers riding behind him. The practice is
also referred to in a sixteenth century ballad. "La
Superfluity des habitz des Dames" (_Anciennes Poesies
Francaises_. Bib. Elzev. 1858, p. 308).--M.

"What is there to hinder us from doing so?" asked Frances.

"Why," said the butler, "I was waiting here for my lord, who had
promised me that he would come."

When his sister-in-law heard this wickedness, she replied--

"Do not wait for him, brother, for I know that he will not come to-day."

The brother-in-law believed her and brought her back again, and when she
had reached home she let him know her extreme anger, telling him that he
was the devil's servant, and did yet more than he was commanded, for she
was sure that the plan had been devised by him and the gentleman and not
by the young Prince, whose money he would rather earn by aiding him in
his follies, than by doing the duty of a good servant. However, now that
she knew his real nature, she would remain no longer in his house,
and thereupon indeed she sent for her brother to take her to his own
country, and immediately left her sister's dwelling.

Having thus failed in his attempt, the butler went to the castle to
learn what had prevented the arrival of the young Prince, and he had
scarcely come thither when he met the Prince himself sallying forth
on his mule, and attended only by the gentleman in whom he put so much
trust.

"Well," the Prince asked of him, "is she still there?"

Thereupon the butler related all