was worse and harder to bear; for they ridiculed her, and mocked at her,
and ceased neither day nor night from their witticisms and jeerings and
laughter. Haumette and Little Mengette and I stood by her, but the
storm was too strong for her other friends, and they avoided her, being
ashamed to be seen with her because she was so unpopular, and because
of the sting of the taunts that assailed them on her account. She shed
tears in secret, but none in public. In public she carried herself
with serenity, and showed no distress, nor any resentment--conduct which
should have softened the feeling against her, but it did not. Her father
was so incensed that he could not talk in measured terms about her wild
project of going to the wars like a man. He had dreamed of her doing
such a thing, some time before, and now he remembered that dream with
apprehension and anger, and said that rather than see her unsex herself
and go away with the armies, he would require her brothers to drown her;
and that if they should refuse, he would do it with his own hands.

But none of these things shook her purpose in the least. Her parents
kept a strict watch upon her to keep her from leaving the village, but
she said her time was not yet; that when the time to go was come she
should know it, and then the keepers would watch in vain.

The summer wasted along; and when it was seen that her purpose continued
steadfast, the parents were glad of a chance which finally offered
itself for bringing her projects to an end through marriage. The Paladin
had the effrontery to pretend that she had engaged herself to him
several years before, and now he claimed a ratification of the
engagement.

She said his statement was not true, and refused to marry him. She was
cited to appear before the ecclesiastical court at Toul to answer
for her perversity; when she declined to have counsel, and elected to
conduct her case herself, her parents and all her ill-wishers rejoiced,
and looked upon her as already defeated. And that was natural enough;
for who would expect that an ignorant peasant-girl of sixteen would be
otherwise than frightened and tongue-tied when standing for the first
time in presence of the practised doctors of the law, and surrounded
by the cold solemnities of a court? Yet all these people were mistaken.
They flocked to Toul to see and enjoy this fright and embarrassment
and defeat, and they had their trouble for their pains. She was modest,
tranq