house.

1 The scene of this tale is laid at the castle where
Margaret died. Ste. Marthe in his _Oraison funebre_,
pronounced at Alencon fifteen days after the Queen's death,
formally states that she expired at Odos near Tarbes. He is
not likely to have been mistaken, so that Brantome's
assertion that the Queen died at Audos in Beam may be
accepted as incorrect (_ante_, vol. i. p. lxxxviii.). It is
further probable that the above tale was actually written at
Odos (_ante_, vol. i. p. lxxxvi.), but the authenticity of
the incidents is very doubtful, as there is an extremely
similar story in the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ (No, xvii.
_Le Conseiller au bluteau_), in which the hero of the
adventure is a "great clerk and knight who presided over the
Court of Accounts in Paris." For subsequent imitations see
Malespini's _Ducento Novelle_ (No. xcvii.) and _Les Joyeuses
Adventures et Nouvelles Recreations_ (No. xix.)--L. and Ed.

One day she hired a discreet and worthy girl, telling her of her
husband's temper and her own, and how she was wont to turn away such
girls whom she found to be wantons. This maid, wishing to continue in
her mistress's service and esteem, resolved to remain a virtuous woman;
and although her master often spoke to her, she on her part gave no heed
to his words save that she repeated them to her mistress, and they thus
both derived much diversion from his folly.

One day the maid was in a back room bolting meal, and wearing her
"sarot," a kind of hood which, after the fashion of that country, not
only formed a coif but covered the whole of the back and shoulders. Her
master, finding her in this trim, came and urged her very pressingly,
and, although she would not have done such a thing even to save her
life, she pretended to consent, and asked leave to go first and see
whether her mistress was engaged in some such manner that they might not
be surprised together. To this he agreed; whereupon she begged him to
put her hood upon his head and to continue bolting whilst she was away,
in order that her mistress might still hear the noise of the bolter. And
this he gladly did, in the hope of obtaining what he sought.

The maid, who was by no means inclined to melancholy, ran off to her
mistress and said to her--

"Come and see your good husband, whom I have taught to bolt in order to
be rid of him."

The wife made all speed