Ever was spinning her thread from the distaff fixed to her saddle.
She was so thrifty and good that her name passed into a proverb.
Longfellow,
Courtship of Miles Standish
, viii.
Bertha, alias AGATHA, the betrothed of Hereward (3 syl.), one of the emperor's Varangian guards. The novel concludes with Hereward enlisting under the banner of count Robert, and marrying Bertha.—Sir W. Scott, Count Robert of Paris (time, Rufus).
Ber'tha, the betrothed of John of Leyden. When she went with her mother to ask count Oberthal's permission to marry, the count resolved to make his pretty vassal his mistress, and confined her in his castle. She made her escape and went to Munster, intending to set fire to the palace of "the prophet," who, she thought, had caused the death of her lover. Being seized and brought before the prophet, she recognized in him her lover, and exclaiming, "I loved thee once, but now my love is turned to hate," stabbed herself and died.—Meyerbeer, Le Prophète (an opera, 1849).
Bertha Amory, wife of Richard Amory and used by him in political intrigues, in Through One Administration, by Francis Hodgson Burnett. Secretly, and against her will, in love with Trevannion, an army officer whom she has known from childhood (1883).
Berthe an Grand-Pied, mother of Charlemagne, so called from a club-foot.
Bertie Cecil, noble young Englishman who assumes his brother's crime to save the family name, and exiles himself as a soldier in the French army of Algiers. Eventually his fame is cleared and he returns to England as lord Royalieu.—Ouida, Under Two Flags.