said she. "Go away, you'll tire
yourself."

"I shall be pope, and you shall pay for this!"

"Then you are no longer disposed to obey me?"

"What can I do this evening to please you?"

"Get out."

And she sprang lightly like a wagtail into her room, and locked
herself in, leaving the cardinal to storm that he was obliged to go.
When the fair Imperia found herself alone, seated before the fire, and
without her little priest, she exclaimed, snapping angrily the gold
links of her chain, "By the double triple horn on the devil, if the
little one has made me have this row with the Cardinal, and exposed me
to the danger of being poisoned tomorrow, unless I pay him over to my
heart's content, I will not die till I have seen him burned alive
before my eyes. Ah!" said she, weeping, this time real tears, "I lead
a most unhappy life, and the little pleasure I have costs me the life
of a dog, let alone my salvation."

As she finished this jeremiad, wailing like a calf that is being
slaughtered, she beheld the blushing face of the young priest, who had
hidden himself, peeping at her from behind her large Venetian mirror.

"Ah!" said she, "Thou art the most perfect monk that ever dwelt in
this blessed and amorous town of Constance. Ah, ah! Come my gentle
cavalier, my dear boy, my little charm, my paradise of delectation,
let me drink thine eyes, eat thee, kill thee with my love. Oh! my
ever-flourishing, ever-green, sempiternal god; from a little monk I
would make a king, emperor, pope, and happier than either. There, thou
canst put anything to fire and sword, I am thine, and thou shalt see
it well; for thou shalt be all a cardinal, even when to redden thy
hood I shed all my heart's blood." And with her trembling hands all
joyously she filled with Greek wine the golden cup, brought by the
Bishop of Coire, and presented it to her sweetheart, whom she served
upon her knee, she whose slipper princes found more to their taste
than that of the pope.

But he gazed at her in silence, with his eye so lustrous with love,
that she said to him, trembling with joy "Ah! be quiet, little one.
Let us have supper."

THE VENIAL SIN

HOW THE GOOD MAN BRUYN TOOK A WIFE.

Messire Bruyn, he who completed the Castle of Roche-Corbon-les-Vouvray,
on the banks of the Loire, was a boisterous fellow in his
youth. When quite little, he squeezed young ladies, turned the house
out of windows, and played the devil wit