ed to give her dress to
Madame the Virgin, and in fact promised it to her, for the day of her
churching. The Sire de Montsoreau galloped before her, his eye bright
as that of a hawk, keeping the people back and guarding with his
knights the security of the journey. Near Marmoustiers the seneschal,
rendered sleepy by the heat, seeing it was the month of August,
waggled about in his saddle, like a diadem upon the head of a cow, and
seeing so frolicsome and so pretty a lady by the side of so old a
fellow, a peasant girl, who was squatting near the trunk of a tree and
drinking water out of her stone jug inquired of a toothless old hag,
who picked up a trifle by gleaning, if this princess was going to bury
her dead.

"Nay," said the old woman, "it is our lady of Roche-Corbon, wife of
the seneschal of Poitou and Touraine, in quest of a child."

"Ah! Ah!" said the young girl, laughing like a fly just satisfied;
then pointing to the handsome knight who was at the head of the
procession--"he who marches at the head would manage that; she would
save the wax-candles and the vow."

"Ha! my little one," replied the hag, "I am rather surprised that she
should go to Notre-Dame de l'Egrignolles seeing that there are no
handsome priests there. She might very well stop for a short time
beneath the shadow the belfry of Marmoustiers; she would soon be
fertile, those good fathers are so lively."

"By a nun's oath!" said a tramp walking up, "look; the Sire de
Montsoreau is lively and delicate enough to open the lady's heart, the
more so as he is well formed to do so."

And all commenced a laugh. The Sire de Montsoreau wished to go to them
and hang them in lime-tree by the road as a punishment for their bad
words, but Blanche cried out quickly--

"Oh, sir, do not hang them yet. They have not said all they mean; and
we shall see them on our return."

She blushed, and the Sire de Montsoreau looked at her eagerly, as
though to shoot into her the mystic comprehensions of love, but the
clearing out of her intelligence had already been commenced by the
sayings of the peasants which were fructifying in her understanding
--her innocence was like touchwood, there was only need for a word
to inflame it.

Thus Blanche perceived now the notable and physical differences
between the qualities of her old husband and perfections of the said
Gauttier, a gentleman who was not over affected with his twenty-three
years, but held himself upright as a n