in bed, and used the
privilege of the season." (Bonn's _Heptameron_, p. 301).
Verses illustrative of the custom will be found in the works
of Clement Marot, Jannet's edition, 1868, vol iii. p. 7, and
in those of Cholieres, Jouaust's edition, 1879, vol. i. p.
224-6.--L. and Ed.

The poor woman, suspecting no harm, begged him to do execution upon the
girl, confessing that she herself had neither strength nor heart for
beating her.

The husband willingly accepted this commission, and, playing the part of
a stern executioner, had purchase made of the finest rods that could be
found. To show, moreover, how anxious he was not to spare the girl, he
caused these rods to be steeped in pickle, so that his poor wife felt
far more pity for her maid than suspicion of her husband.

Innocents' Day being come, the upholsterer rose early in the morning,
and, going up to the room where the maid lay all alone, he gave her the
Innocents in a different fashion to that which he had talked of with
his wife. The maid wept full sore, but it was of no avail. Nevertheless,
fearing lest his wife should come upon them, he fell to beating the
bed-post with the rods which he had with him in such wise that he barked
and broke them; and in this condition he brought them back to his wife,
saying--

"Methinks, sweetheart, your maid will remember the Innocents."

When the upholsterer was gone out of the house, the poor servant threw
herself upon her knees before her mistress, telling her that her husband
had done her the greatest wrong that was ever done to a serving-maid.
The mistress, however, thinking that this merely had reference to the
flogging which she believed to have been given, would not suffer the
girl to finish, but said to her--

"My husband did well, and only what I have for more than a month been
urging him to do. If you were hurt I am very glad to hear it. You may
lay it all at my door, and, what is more, he did not even do as much as
he ought to have done."

The serving-maid, finding that her mistress approved of the matter,
thought that it could not be so great a sin as she had imagined, the
more so as it had been brought to pass by a woman whose virtue was held
in such high repute. Accordingly she never afterwards ventured to speak
of it.

Her master, however, seeing that his wife was as content to be deceived
as he was to deceive her, resolved that he would frequently give her
this contentment, and