peared comely and smooth in his eyes, but she shook her
head at him.

'These be woeful and pretty stories,' she said. 'I would have you to
tell me many of them.'

'All through the night,' he said eagerly, and made to clasp her in his
arms. But she pushed him back again with her hand on his chest.

'All through the night an you will,' she said. 'But first you shall
tell a prettier tale before a man in a frock.'

He sprang full four feet back at one spring.

'I have wedded no woman, yet,' he said.

'Then it is time you wed one now,' she answered.

'Oh widow, bethink you,' he pleaded. 'Would you spoil so pretty a
tale? Would you humble so goodly a man's pride?'

'Why, it were a pity,' she said. 'But I am minded to take a husband.'

'You have done well this ten years without one,' he cried out.

Her face seemed to set like adamant as she turned her cheek to him.

'Call it a woman's mad freak,' she said.

'Six and twenty pupils in the fair game of love I have had,' he said.
'You shall be the seven and twentieth. Twenty and seven are seven and
two. Seven and two are nine. Now nine is the luckiest of numbers. Be
you that one.'

'Nay,' she answered. 'It is time you learned husbandry who have taught
so many and earned so little.'

He slipped himself softly into the cushions beside her.

'Would you spoil so fair a tale?' he said. 'Would you have me to break
so many vows? I have promised a mort of women marriage, and so long as
I be not wed I may keep faith with any one of them.'

She held her face away from him and laughed.

'That is as it may be,' she said. 'But when you wed with me to-night
you will keep faith with one woman.'

'Woman,' he pleaded. 'I am a great scholar.'

'Ay,' she answered, 'and great scholars have climbed to great
estates.'

She continued to count the coins that came from his little money-bags;
the shadow of her hood upon the great beams grew more portentous.

'It is thought that your magistership may rise to be Chancellor of the
Realm of England,' she added.

He clutched his forehead.

'Eheu!' he said. 'If you have heard men say that, you know that wedded
to thee I could never climb.'

'Then I shall very comfortably keep my inn here in Paris town,' she
answered. 'You have here fourteen pounds and eleven shillings.'

He stretched forth his lean hands:

'Why, I will marry thee in the morning,' he said, and he moistened his
lips with the tip of his tongue. Outside the door ther