of Crèvecoeur, »that is over insolent in
an unworthy adventurer!«
    »Do not call him so, Crèvecoeur,« said Dunois; »I have good reason to bear
testimony to his gallantry - and in behalf of that lady, too.«
    »You make words of nothing,« said Isabelle, blushing with shame, and partly
with resentment; »it is a letter from my unfortunate aunt - She writes
cheerfully, though her situation must be dreadful.«
    »Let us hear, let us hear what says the Boar's bride,« said Crèvecoeur.
    The Countess Isabelle read the letter, in which her aunt seemed determined
to make the best of a bad bargain, and to console herself for the haste and
indecorum of her nuptials, by the happiness of being wedded to one of the
bravest men of the age, who had just acquired a princedom by his valour. She
implored her niece not to judge of her William (as she called him) by the report
of others, but to wait till she knew him personally. He had his faults, perhaps,
but they were such as belonged to characters whom she had ever venerated.
William was rather addicted to wine, but so was the gallant Sir Godfrey, her
grandsire; - he was something hasty and sanguinary in his temper, such had been
her brother Reinold of blessed memory; he was blunt in speech, few Germans were
otherwise; and a little wilful and peremptory, but she believed all men loved to
rule. More there was to the same purpose; and the whole concluded with the hope
and request, that Isabelle would, by means of the bearer, endeavour her escape
from the tyrant of Burgundy, and come to her loving kinswoman's Court of Liege,
where any little differences concerning their mutual rights of succession to the
Earldom might be adjusted by Isabelle's marrying Earl Eberson - a bridegroom
younger indeed than his bride, but that, as she (the Lady Hameline) might
perhaps say from experience, was an inequality more easy to be endured than
Isabelle could be aware of.65
    Here the Countess Isabelle stopped; the Abbess observing, with a prim
aspect, that she had read quite enough concerning such worldly vanities, and the
Count of Crèvecoeur breaking out, »Aroint thee, deceitful witch! - Why, this
device smells rank as the toasted cheese in a rat-trap - Now fie, and double
fie, upon the old decoy-duck!«
    The Countess of Crèvecoeur gravely rebuked her husband for his violence -
»The Lady Hameline,« she said, »must have