d been
childishly standing over the pot, licking his fingers in eager
anticipation; whereupon the imbecile set up a sharp cry that blended
with the deeper roar of the lilliputian.

"And I caught the rabbit!" piteously bellowed the latter from his
retreat.

"And I found the turnips!" cried the colossal idiot, tears running down
his lubberly cheeks.

"Peace, you demons!" exclaimed the woman, waving the spoon at them,
"or, by the hell-born, you'll ne'er taste morsel of it!"

Quieted by this stupendous threat, they closed their mouths and opened
their eyes but the wider, while the gipsy spouse of the student stirred
and stirred the mixture in the iron pot, gazing at the fire with
frowning brow as though she would read some page of the future in the
leaping flames.

"Saw you but now how she served the dwarf and the overgrown lump?"
whispered the student to the duke's fool. "Are you still minded to
meet her?"

For answer the jester left the window, stepped to the door, and,
opening it, strode into the room.

CHAPTER X

THE FOOL RETURNS TO THE CASTLE

As the duke's fool suddenly appeared in the crowded apartment, the
hubbub abruptly ceased; the minstrels and mountebanks gazed in surprise
at the slender figure of the alien jester whose rich garments
proclaimed him a personage of importance, one who had reached that
pinnacle in buffoonery, the high office of court _plaisant_. The morio
crouched against the wall, his fear of the new-comer as great as his
body was large; the garret minstrels stopped strumming their
instruments, while the woman at the fire uttered a quick exclamation
and dropped the spoon with a clatter to the floor, where it was
promptly seized by the dwarf, who, taking advantage of the woman's
consternation, thrust it greedily to his lips. But soon recovering
from her wonderment, the gipsy soundly boxed the dwarf's ears,
recovered her spoon and set herself once more to stirring the contents
of the pot.

The jester observed her for a moment--the heavy, bare arm moving round
and round over the kettle; her sunburnt legs uncovered to the knee; the
masculine attitude of her figure with the torn and worn garments that
covered her--and she seemed to him a veritable trull of disorder and
squalor. The gipsy, too, looked at him over her shoulder, and, as she
gazed, her hand went slower and slower, until all motion ceased, and
the spoon lay on the edge of the pot, when she turned deliberately,
offe