Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/164

Rh young woman, with a turn for sentiment ("Ah, Sire, you know not what a heartbreak comes from unrequited love!"); and Nomerfide, a scatter-brained high-spirited girl, "the youngest and maddest of us all." Nor is the number yet complete. Two bachelors, Guébron, a worthy, steady gentleman, and the missing Simontault, a proficient in badinage ("who is always complaining of the ladies, though he looks so merry and in such good condition"), have escaped with difficulty from the swollen river and reach the abbey at last, thus bringing the number of the rescued to the necessary ten.

These fugitives from the floods, being safely arrived at St. Savin, consider how they shall pass their time. They must wait there about a fortnight while the bridges are repaired and the waters subside. To live a fortnight without pastime is an insupportable idea. To lament their dead friends and perished servants would be a waste of time. Ought they not rather, "in joy inestimable, to praise the Creator who, contenting Himself with the servitors, has saved the masters and the mistresses?" The mere loss of servants (as Émarsuitte remarks, with a lingering touch of mediævalism), the death of servants should not throw one into despair: they are so easily replaced. Longarine, the tender-hearted, is a little shocked at this philosophy; but she too admits that a pastime is necessary, "else, remembering our losses, we might become wearisome, and that is an incurable malady." As for the madcap Nomerfide, she declares that, were she a single day without amusement, she would be found dead in the morning. To avert so doleful a catastrophe, Hircan and all the gentlemen beseech Madame Oisille, as the eldest of the party, to discover