slipped gleefully into the king’s apartment.  The girl locked him carefully in a cupboard that was close to his wife’s bed, and through a crack he feasted his eyes upon her beauty, for she undressed herself before the fire, and put on a thin nightgown, through which her charms were plainly visible.  Believing herself alone with her maid she made those little jokes that women will when undressing.  “Am I not worth 20,000 crowns to-night?  Is that overpaid with a castle in Brie?”

And saying this she gently raised two white supports, firm as rocks, which had well sustained many assaults, seeing they had been furiously attacked and had not softened.  “My shoulders alone are worth a kingdom; no king could make their equal.  But I am tired of this life.  That which is hard work is no pleasure.”  The little maid smiled, and her lovely mistress said to her, “I should like to see you in my place.”  Then the maid laughed, saying—­

“Be quiet, Madame, he is there.”

“Who?”

“Your husband.”

“Which?”

“The real one.”

“Chut!” said Madame.

And her maid told her the whole story, wishing to keep her favour and the 12,000 crowns as well.

“Oh well, he shall have his money’s worth.  I’ll give his desires time to cool.  If he tastes me may I lose my beauty and become as ugly as a monkey’s baby.  You get into bed in my place and thus gain the 12,000 crowns.  Go and tell him that he must take himself off early in the morning in order that I may not find out your trick upon me, and just before dawn I will get in by his side.”

The poor husband was freezing and his teeth were chattering, and the chambermaid coming to the cupboard on pretence of getting some linen, said to him, “Your hour of bliss approaches.  Madame to-night has made grand preparations and you will be well served.  But work without whistling, otherwise I shall be lost.”

At last, when the good husband was on the point of perishing with cold, the lights were put out.  The maid cried softly in the curtains to the king’s sweetheart, that his lordship was there, and jumped into bed, while her mistress went out as if she had been the chambermaid.  The advocate, released from his cold hiding-place, rolled rapturously into the warm sheets, thinking to himself, “Oh! this is good!” To tell the truth, the maid gave him his money’s worth—­and the good man thought of the difference between the profusion of the royal houses and the niggardly ways of the citizens’ wives.  The servant laughing, played her part marvellously well, regaling the knave with gentle cries, shiverings, convulsions and tossings about, like a newly-caught fish on the grass, giving little Ah!  Ahs! in default of other words; and as often as the request was made by her, so often was it complied with by the advocate, who dropped of to sleep at last, like an empty pocket.  But before finishing, the lover who wished to preserve a souvenir of this sweet