e daughters, Jane, Margaret and Catherine,
all three of whom were married advantageously. Contrary to
Queen Margaret's assertion above, none of them became nuns;
Alan may, however, have had illegitimate daughters who took
the veil. By his second wife he had a son, John II., and a
daughter christened Catherine, like her half-sister. She
died unmarried, says Anselme's _Histoire Genealogique_ (vol.
iv. p. 57), and would appear to be the heroine of Queen
Margaret's tale.--L. and B. J.

And so dearly did she love her brother that he, for his part, preferred
her even to his wife and children.

She was asked in marriage by many of good estate, but her brother would
never listen to them through dread of losing her, and also because he
loved his money too well. She therefore spent a great part of her life
un-wedded, living very virtuously in her brother's house. Now there was
a young and handsome gentleman who had been reared from childhood in
this same house, and who, growing in comeliness and virtue as well as in
years, had come to have a complete and peaceful rule over his master,
in such sort that whenever the latter desired to give any charge to his
sister he always did so by means of this young gentleman, (3) and he
allowed him so much influence and intimacy, sending him morning and
evening to his sister, that at last a great love sprang up between the
two.

3 This is possibly a Count of Keradreux, whom John II. is
known to have put to death, though the Breton and French
chroniclers do not relate the circumstances of the crime.--
See_post_, p. 100, note 4.--Ed.

But as the gentleman feared for his life if he should offend his master,
and the lady feared also for her honour, their love found gladness in
speech alone, until the Lord of Jossebelin had often said to his sister
that he wished the gentleman were rich and of as good a house as her
own, for he had never known a man whom he would so gladly have had for
his brother-in-law.

He repeated these sayings so often that, after debating them together,
the lovers concluded that if they wedded one another they would readily
be forgiven. Love, which easily believes what it desires, persuaded them
that nothing but good could come of it; and in this hope they celebrated
and consummated the marriage without the knowledge of any save a priest
and certain women.

After they had lived for a few years in the delight