As they entered the "Tête d'Or" they met a young lady richly dressed, with the velvet chaperon on her head, which was confined by law to the nobility. They unbonneted and louted low, and she curtsied, but fixed her eye on vacancy the while, which had a curious rather than a genial effect. However nobility was not so unassuming in those days as it is now. So they were little surprised. But the next minute supper was served, and lo! in came this princess and carved the goose. "Holy St. Bavon," cried Gerard. "'Twas the landlady all the while." A young woman, cursed with nice white teeth and lovely hands: for these beauties being misallied to homely features had turned her head. She was a feeble carver, carving not for the sake of others but herself, _i. e._, to display her hands. When not carving she was eternally either taking a pin out of her head or her body, or else putting a pin into her head or her body. To display her teeth, she laughed indifferently at gay or grave; and from ear to ear. And she "sat at ease" with her mouth ajar. Now there is an animal in creation of no great general merit; but it has the eye of a hawk for affectation. It is called "a boy." And Gerard was but a boy still in some things; swift to see, and to loathe, affectation. So Denys sat casting sheep's eyes, and Gerard, daggers, at one comedian. Presently, in the midst of her minauderies, she gave a loud shriek and bounded out of her chair like hare from form, and ran backwards out of the room uttering little screams, and holding her farthingale tight down to her ankles with both hands. And, as she scuttled out of the door, a mouse scuttled back to the wainscot in a state of equal, and perhaps more reasonable, terror. The guests, who had risen in anxiety at the principal yell, now stood irresolute awhile, then sat down laughing. The tender Denys, to whom a woman's cowardice, being a sexual trait, seemed a lovely and pleasant thing, said he would go comfort her and bring her back. "Nay! nay! nay! for pity's sake let her bide," cried Gerard earnestly. "Oh blessed mouse! sure some saint sent thee to our aid." Now at his right hand sat a sturdy middle-aged burgher, whose conduct up to date had been cynical. He had never budged, nor even rested his knife, at all this fracas. He now turned on Gerard and inquired haughtily whether he really thought that "grimacière" was afraid of a mouse. "Ay. She screamed hearty."