d
for your love I will take this ring from you." Bassanio was sadly
distressed, that the counsellor should ask him for the only thing he
could not part with, and he replied in great confusion, that he could
not give him that ring, because it was his 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 Anthonio, "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 so 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 outdone 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 every thing 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 Anthonio; 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
quarrelling 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 Ner