"O ay--but he is a very honest man, is Jacques d'Arc; and he was
very wroth at all the talk about his daughter, and he vowed she
should wed an honest man, as she is now of age to do, and so forget
her dreams and her visions, and take care of her house and her
husband and the children the good God should send them--like other
wedded wives."

"Then has she indeed wedded?" asked Bertrand earnestly.

"Ah, that is another story!" answered our host, wagging his head
and spreading out his hands. "It would take too long were I to tell
you all, messires; but so much will I tell. They did find a man who
had long desired the pretty Jeanne for his wife, and he did
forswear himself and vow that he had been betrothed to Jeanne with
her own free will and consent, and that now he claimed her as his
wife. Jeanne, whose courage is high, though she be so quiet and
modest in her daily life, did vehemently deny the charge, whereupon
the angry father and his friend, the claimant of her hand, did
bring it into the court, and the Maid had to defend herself there
from the accusation of broken faith. But by St. Michael and all his
angels!--how she did confound them all! She asked no help from
lawyers, though one did offer himself to her. She called no
witnesses herself; but she questioned the witnesses brought against
her, and also the man who would fain have become her lord, and out
of their own mouths did she convict them of lying and hypocrisy and
conspiracy, so that she was triumphantly acquitted, and her judges
called her a most wonderful child, and told her mother to be proud
of such a daughter!"

I saw a flush rise to Bertrand's cheek, a flush as of pride and