pearls and rubies--strung like beads on a gold wire. This was
the present that pleased the lady best, the woman said. Later
on, as it happened, it was produced at the trial, and appears to
have struck the Judges and the public as a curious and valuable
jewel.

The very same winter, the Baron absented himself again, this time
as far as Bordeaux, and on his return he brought his wife
something even odder and prettier than the bracelet. It was a
winter evening when he rode up to Kerfol and, walking into the
hall, found her sitting listlessly by the fire, her chin on her
hand, looking into the fire. He carried a velvet box in his hand
and, setting it down on the hearth, lifted the lid and let out a
little golden-brown dog.

Anne de Cornault exclaimed with pleasure as the little creature
bounded toward her. "Oh, it looks like a bird or a butterfly!"
she cried as she picked it up; and the dog put its paws on her
shoulders and looked at her with eyes "like a Christian's."
After that she would never have it out of her sight, and petted
and talked to it as if it had been a child--as indeed it was the
nearest thing to a child she was to know. Yves de Cornault was
much pleased with his purchase. The dog had been brought to him
by a sailor from an East India merchantman, and the sailor had
bought it of a pilgrim in a bazaar at Jaffa, who had stolen it
from a nobleman's wife in China: a perfectly permissible thing to
do, since the pilgrim was a Christian and the nobleman a heathen
doomed to hellfire. Yves de Cornault had paid a long price for
the dog, for they were beginning to be in demand at the French
court, and the sailor knew he had got hold of a good thing; but