"They are women, good captain, and you and I are gentlemen, or should be, and must use them gently." Messire Noel frowned and his hand made a gesture in the direction of his sword-hilt; then he remembered the folly of quarrelling with so great a man and contented himself with shrugging his shoulders as he questioned, "And the demirep in the doublet and hose?" "Let her stay for the present," Villon answered, and in obedience to a sign from Noel the four girls came timidly forward with downcast eyes, while Huguette remained apart, leaning composedly against the image of Pan and surveying the scene with a good-humoured indifference. When the girls were close to him, Villon spoke: "Well, young ladies, what is this trade of yours that has brought you into trouble?" Jehanneton dropped a curtsey. "I make the caps that line helmets." Isabeau followed quickly, "I am a lace weaver. Enne, an honest trade." Blanche came next, "I am a slipper maker." Denise ended the catalogue. "And I a glover." Mischief danced in Villon's eyes. "No worse and no better. A word in your ear." He whispered something into each girl's ear in turn, and as he did so, each girl started, drew back, looked confused, laughed and blushed. It is ever to be deplored that the worthy Dom Gregory, whose ecclesiastical history of Poitou is the source of so much curious information concerning Villon, should have omitted, from a mistaken sense of delicacy, to chronicle precisely what it was that the poet whispered in the ears of each of the girls. All he condescends to record in his crabbed, canine Latin, is that Villon showed such intimate acquaintance with certain physical peculiarities or whimsical adventures private to each damsel that she believed the speaker's knowledge to be little less than supernatural. Literature of the skittish sort must deplore the monastic reticence, but history can do no more than accept it and leave imagination to fill in the blank as best it pleases. All history is certain of is that the girls gathered together, chatting like sparrows, each speaking rapidly: "The gentleman is a wizard. Why, he told me--" "Enne, a miracle; he reminded me--" "Why, he knows--" "What do you think he said?" Each girl was whispering to the other what Villon had told her, when Villon interrupted them. "Young women, young women, the world is a devil of a place for those who are poor. I could preach you a powerful sermon on your follies and frailties, but, somehow, the words stick in my gullet. Here is a gold coin apiece for you. Go and gather yourself roses, my roses, to take back to what, Heaven pity you! you call your homes." Jehanneton gave a little gasp of surprise. "Are we free?" Villon answered her sadly, "Free? Poor children! Such as you are never free. Go and pray Heaven to make men better, for the sake of your daughter's daughters."