"Mistress Reicht," said Denys, with great dignity and ceremony, indeed so great as to verge on the absurd, "you are turned off. If on a slight acquaintance I might advise, I'd say, since you are a servant no more, be a mistress, a queen." "Easier said than done," replied Reicht bluntly. "Not a jot. You see here one who is a man, though but half an arbalestrier, owing to that devilish Englishman's arrow, in whose carcass I have, however, left a like token, which is a comfort. I have twenty gold pieces" (he showed them) "and a stout arm. In another week or so I shall have twain. Marriage is not a habit of mine: but I capitulate to so many virtues. You are beautiful, good hearted, and outspoken, and above all, you take the part of my she-comrade. Be then an arbalestriesse!" "And what the dickens is that?" inquired Reicht. "I mean, be the wife, mistress, and queen, of Denys of Burgundy here present!" A dead silence fell on all. It did not last long though: and was followed by a burst of unreasonable indignation. _Catherine._] "Well, did you ever?" _Margaret._] "Never in all my born days." _Catherine._] "Before our very faces." _Margaret._] "Of all the absurdity, and insolence of this ridiculous sex----" Here Denys observed somewhat drily, that the female to whom he had addressed himself was mute; and the others, on whose eloquence there was no immediate demand, were fluent: on this the voices stopped, and the eyes turned pivot-like upon Reicht. She took a sly glance from under her lashes at her military assailant, and said, "I mean to take a good look at any man ere I leap into his arms." Denys drew himself up majestically. "Then look your fill, and leap away." This proposal led to a new and most unexpected result. A long white finger was extended by the Van Eyck in a line with the speaker's eye, and an agitated voice bade him stand, in the name of all the saints. "You are beautiful, so," cried she. "You are inspired--with folly. What matters that? you are inspired. I must take off your head." And in a moment she was at work with her pencil. "Come out, hussy," she screamed to Reicht; "more in front of him, and keep the fool inspired and beautiful. Oh, why had I not this maniac for my good centurion? They went and brought me a brute with a low forehead and a shapeless beard." Catherine stood and looked with utter amazement at this pantomime, and secretly resolved that her venerable hostess had been a disguised lunatic all this time, and was now busy throwing off the mask. As for Reicht, she was unhappy and cross. She had left her caldron in a precarious state, and made no scruple to say so, and that duties so grave as hers left her no "time to waste a playing the statee and the fool all at one time." Her mistress in reply reminded her that it was possible to be rude and rebellious to one's poor old, affectionate, desolate mistress, without being utterly heartless, and savage; and a trampler on arts.