more he lived the more he became partial to life. But to be brief, one night he died without knowing where he was going, for he said to Blanche, “Ho! ho! My dear, I see thee no longer! Is it night?”      

       It was the death of the just, and he had well merited it as a reward for his labours in the Holy Land.     

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       Blanche held for his death a great and true mourning, weeping for him as one weeps for one’s father. She remained melancholy, without wishing to lend her ear to the music of a second wedding, for which she was praised by all good people, who knew not that she had a husband in her heart, a life in hope; but she was the greater part of her time a widow in fact and widow in heart, because hearing no news of her lover at the Crusades, the poor Countess reputed him dead, and during certain nights seeing him wounded and lying at full length, she would wake up in tears. She lived thus for fourteen years in the remembrance of one day of happiness. Finally, one day when she had with her certain ladies of Touraine, and they were talking together after dinner, behold her little boy, who was at that time about thirteen and a half, and resembled Rene more than it is allowable for a child to resemble his father, and had nothing of the Sire Bruyn about him but his name—behold the little one, a madcap and pretty like his mother, who came in from the garden, running, perspiring, panting, jumping, scattering all things in his way, after the uses and customs of infancy, and who ran straight to his well-beloved mother, jumping into her lap, and interrupting the conversation, cried out—     

       “Oh, mother I want to speak to you, I have seen in the courtyard a pilgrim, who squeezed me very tight.”      

       “Ah!” cried the chatelaine, hurrying towards one of the servants who had charge of the young count and watched over his precious days, “I have forbidden you ever to leave my son in the hands of strangers, not even in those of the holiest man in the world. You quit my service.”      

       “Alas! my lady,” replied the old equerry, quite overcome, “this one wished him no harm for he wept while kissing him passionately.”      

       “He wept?” said she; “ah! it’s the father.”      

       Having said which, she leaned 

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