Page:Studies in the history of the renaissance (IA studiesinhistor01pategoog).djvu/34

12 summer-time, in the month of the May, when the days are warm and long and clear, and the nights coy and serene.

'One night Nicolette, lying on her bed, saw the moon shine clear through the little window and heard the nightingale sing in the garden, and then came the memory of Aucassin whom she so much loved. She thought of the Count Garins of Beaucaire, who so mortally hated her, and to be rid of her might at any moment cause her to be burned or drowned. She perceived that the old woman who kept her company was asleep; she rose and put on the fairest gown she had; she took the bed-clothes, and other pieces of stuff, and knotted them together like a cord as far as they would go. Then she tied the end to a pillar of the window and let herself slip down quite softly into the garden, and passed straight across it to reach the town.

'Her hair was fair, in small curls, her eyes smiling and of a greenish-blue colour, her face feat and clear, the little lips very red, the teeth small and white; and the daisies which she crushed in passing, holding her skirt high behind and before, looked dark against her feet; the girl was so white!

'She came to the garden-gate and opened it, and walked through the streets of Beaucaire, keeping on the dark side of the street to avoid the light of