"Yes," said she, holding her wax-like hands out to the brazier and rubbing them thoughtfully, "I remember it as well as if it had happened yesterday. I do not know whether I ever mentioned to you, Le Glorieux, that I was lady in waiting to her Highness, Marguerite of Scotland, then Dauphiness of France?" With the agility of a cat the jester, who at this moment was standing on his head, regained his feet and stood respectfully before her Grace. "Never, Cousin," replied he gravely; "or at least not more than five thousand times." "I thought not," she returned, for being somewhat deaf she had not caught the latter part of the sentence. "Yes, I was in the train of that dear and beauteous lady whom I loved so much that I still wear the costume chosen by her, this cap and veil and these shoes." The old lady thrust out a foot shod in a shoe having a sharp point as long again as her foot, remarking contentedly, "This is a fine style of a shoe, do you not think so, Le Glorieux?" "Yes, Cousin, and one calculated to encourage an ambitious great toe that is anxious to keep on growing," replied the fool, whose own shoes were pointed, but in a style far less exaggerated than those of her Grace. "As I was saying," she went on, "I remember it as well as if it had happened yesterday. The dauphiness was fond of learning, and she composed verses of no small merit. I too caught the contagion and composed verses. I wish that I could remember some of them to repeat to you." "Do not trouble yourself, Cousin," said the jester hastily; "I am nothing but a fool, you know, and I must deny myself many pleasures." "At the court," she resumed, "lived at the time the great poet Alain Chartier, who was a wonderfully gifted man, though very plain. One day when the dauphiness and her ladies--I was among them, Le Glorieux--were crossing the courtyard we found Alain Chartier asleep on a bench. Much to our surprise her Highness gathered up her long train so that its rustle would not awaken him, and tripping softly toward the sleeping poet she kissed him on the lips. Yes, Le Glorieux, that great princess consort of the dauphin--afterward Louis the Eleventh--deigned to kiss a humble poet with her own lips! Was it not wonderful?" "Not so wonderful as if she had tried to kiss him with somebody else's lips," replied the fool, adding, "but it was unfair to Chartier." "Why unfair?" "Because she had no right to take him unawares and unarmed." Her Grace frowned darkly as she replied, "Le Glorieux, you are nothing but a fool and you can not understand what an honor it was for a humble poet to be kissed by a great princess. But one of the courtiers said, 'Madame, why did you kiss that extremely unprepossessing man?' The dauphiness replied, 'I did not kiss the man----'" "How could she say that," broke in the jester, "when you all saw her do it?" "Do not interrupt me, Fool. The dauphiness said, 'I did not kiss the man----'"