wife's gift, and he had
vowed never to part with it; but that he would give him the most
valuable ring in Venice, and find it out by proclamation. On this
Portia affected to be affronted, and left the court, saying, "You
teach me, sir, how a beggar should be answered."

"Dear Bassanio," said Antonio, "let him have the ring; let my love and
the great service he has done for me be valued against your wife's
displeasure." Bassanio, ashamed to appear too ungrateful, yielded, and
sent Gratiano after Portia with the ring; and then the _clerk_
Nerissa, who had also given Gratiano a ring, she begged his ring, and
Gratiano (not choosing to be out-done in generosity by his lord) gave
it to her. And there was laughing among these ladies, to think when
they got home how they would tax their husbands with giving away their
rings, and swear that they had given them as a present to some woman.

Portia, when she returned, was in that happy temper of mind which
never fails to attend the consciousness of having performed a good
action; her cheerful spirits enjoyed everything she saw: the moon
never seemed to shine so bright before; and when that pleasant moon
was hid behind a cloud, then a light which she saw from her house at
Belmont as well pleased her charmed fancy, and she said to Nerissa,
"That light we see is burning in my hall; how far that little candle
throws its beams, so shines a good deed in a naughty world;" and
hearing the sound of music from her house, she said, "Methinks that
music sounds much sweeter than by day."

And now Portia and Nerissa entered the house, and dressing themselves
in their own apparel, they awaited the arrival of their husbands, who
soon followed them with Antonio; and Bassanio presenting his dear
friend to the lady Portia, the congratulations and welcomings of that
lady were hardly over, when they perceived Nerissa and her husband
quarreling in a corner of the room. "A quarrel already?" said Portia.
"What is the matter?" Gratiano replied, "Lady, it is about a paltry
gilt ring that Nerissa gave me, with words upon it like the poetry on
a cutler's knife, _Love me, and leave me not_."

"What does the poetry or the value of the ring signify?" said Nerissa.
"You swore to me when I gave it to you, that you would keep it till
the hour of death; and now you say you gave it to the lawyer's clerk.
I know you gave it to a woman."--"By this hand," replied Gratiano, "I
gave it to a youth, a kind of boy, a lit