to be taken like partridges, to be spitted and roasted.  One wet morning, when the weather was that in which the snails make their tracks, a melancholy time, and suitable to reverie, Blanche was in the house sitting in her chair in deep thought, because nothing produces more lively concoctions of the substantive essences, and no receipt, specific or philter is more penetrating, transpiercing or doubly transpiercing and titillating than the subtle warmth which simmers between the nap of the chair and a maiden sitting during certain weather.

Now without knowing it the Countess was incommoded by her innocence, which gave more trouble than it was worth to her brain, and gnawed her all over.  Then the good man, seriously grieved to see her languishing, wished to drive away the thoughts which were ultra-conjugal principles of love.

“Whence comes your sadness, sweetheart?” said he.

“From shame.”

“What then affronts you?”

“The not being a good woman; because I am without a child, and you without lineage!  Is one a lady without progeny?  Nay!  Look! . . .  All my neighbours have it, and I was married to have it, as you to give it to me; the nobles of Touraine are all amply furnished with children, and their wives give them lapfuls, you alone have none, they laugh at you there.  What will become of your name and your fiefs and your seigniories?  A child is our natural company; it is a delight to us to make a fright of it, to fondle it, to swaddle it, to dress and undress it, to cuddle it, to sing it lullabies, to cradle it, to get it up, to put it to bed, and to nourish it, and I feel that if I had only the half of one, I would kiss it, swaddle it, and unharness it, and I would make it jump and crow all day long, as the other ladies do.”

“Were it not that in giving them birth women die, and that for this you are still too delicate and too close in the bud, you would already be a mother,” replied the seneschal, made giddy with the flow of words.  “But will you buy one ready-made?—­that will cost you neither pain nor labour.”

“But,” said she, “I want the pain and labour, without which it will not be ours.  I know very well it should be the fruit of my body, because at church they say that Jesus was the fruit of the Virgin’s womb.”

“Very well, then pray God that it may be so,” cried the seneschal, “and intercede with the Virgin of Egrignolles.  Many a lady has conceived after the neuvaine; you must not fail to do one.”

Then the same day Blanche set out towards Notre-Dame de l’Egrignolles, decked out like a queen riding her beautiful mare, having on her a robe of green velvet, laced down with fine gold lace, open at the breast, having sleeves of scarlet, little shoes and a high hat ornamented with precious stones, and a gold waistband that showed off her little waist, as slim as a pole.  She wished to give her dress to Madame the Virgin, and in fact promised it to her,