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FOOLISH FEAR.[1]


Of a young man of Rouen, married to a fair youg girl of the age fifteen or thereabouts; and how the mother of the girl wished to have the marriage annuled by the Judge of Rouen, and of the sentence which the said Judge pronounced when he had heard the parties—as you will hear more plainly in the course of the said story.


IN the good town of Rouen, not long ago, a young man was married to a fair and tender virgin, aged fifteen, or thereabouts. On the day of the great feast—that is to say, the wedding—the mother of the young girl, as is customary in such places, instructed the bride in all the mysteries of wedlock, and taught her how to behave to her husband on the first night.

The young girl, who was looking forward to the time when she could put these doctrines into practice, took great pains and trouble to remember the lesson given her by her good mother, and it seemed to her that when the time came for her to put these counsels into execution, that she would perform her duties so well that her husband would

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  1. Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles: R. B. Douglas' translation: Paris, Charles Carrington. C.f. note ante.