Imagine the palpitations of her heart: she could no longer doubt but she should again see Don Alphonso, but he was apprehensive of being known by him: she therefore pulled her hat over her eyes, wrapped herself up in her cloak, and preceded by her clerk and the gaoler, entered the dungeon.
(To be concluded in our next.)
STORY OF TWO CORDELIERS.
BY MARGARET VALOIS, QUEEN OF FRANCE.
Two cordeliers, arriving late one evening at a little village, were obliged to lodge at a butcher’s, and the chamber where they lay was only separated by a few boards from that where the butcher and his wife slept. Curiosity led the cordeliers to hearken what the man and woman were conversing about. The husband began talking of his domestic concerns, and said, “I must get up, my dear, to-morrow betimes, and give a look at our cordeliers; one of them is, I think, in pretty good order, but we will kill both, and salt them down, which will turn well to our account.”—Although the butcher spoke only of his pigs, which he jocosely called cordeliers, the poor friars were so horribly frightened, that they were ready to expire with fear, and resolved to save themselves by jumping out of the window. The thinnest of the two fell lightly on the ground, and ran as far as the town without waiting for his companion: the other followed his example; but being very fat, fell so heavily, that he broke his leg, and with much difficulty crawled to a little shed which he found not far off, and which proved to be precisely the place where the pigs (his brother cordeliers) usually lay. Early the next morning the butcher got ready his knife, and went straight to the stye:—“Come, come, my cordeliers,” said he, “come out, come out, for to-day I am resolved to eat some of your puddings.” The cordelier cried out for mercy; and the butcher, who concluded that St. Francois had metamorphosed one of his pigs into a friar, on purpose to punish him for having sported with the name of a religious order of men, was overcome with fear; but the matter being soon explained, the good fathers, in gratitude for their hospitable reception, and fortunate release from their fears, very peaceably parted with their host, and very kindly comforted him with their benediction.