ttle shamefastness and they gave token
thereof by a modest redness that appeared upon their faces; but, after
looking one at another, they hearkened thereto, tittering the while
and scarce able to abstain from laughing. As soon as he was come to
the end thereof, the queen turned to Emilia and bade her follow on,
whereupon, sighing no otherwise than as she had been aroused from a
dream, she began, "Lovesome lasses, for that long thought hath held me
far from here, I shall, to obey our queen content myself with
[relating] a story belike much slighter than that which I might have
bethought myself to tell, had my mind been present here, recounting to
you the silly default of a damsel, corrected by an uncle of hers with
a jocular retort, had she been woman enough to have apprehended it.

A certain Fresco da Celatico, then, had a niece familiarly called
Ciesca,[308] who, having a comely face and person (though none of
those angelical beauties that we have often seen aforetime), set so
much store by herself and accounted herself so noble that she had
gotten a habit of carping at both men and women and everything she
saw, without anywise taking thought to herself, who was so much more
fashous, froward and humoursome than any other of her sex that nothing
could be done to her liking. Beside all this, she was so prideful
that, had she been of the blood royal of France, it had been
overweening; and when she went abroad, she gave herself so many airs
that she did nought but make wry faces, as if there came to her a
stench from whomsoever she saw or met. But, letting be many other
vexatious and tiresome fashions of hers, it chanced one day that she
came back to the house, where Fresco was, and seating herself near
him, all full of airs and grimaces, did nothing but puff and blow;
whereupon quoth he, 'What meaneth this, Ciesca, that, to-day being a
holiday, thou comest home so early?' To which she answered, all like
to die away with affectation, 'It is true I have come back soon, for
that I believe there were never in this city so many disagreeable and
tiresome people, both men and women, as there are to-day; there
passeth none about the streets but is hateful to me as ill-chance, and
I do not believe there is a woman in the world to whom it is more
irksome to see disagreeable folk than it is to me; wherefore I have
returned thus early, not to see them.' 'My lass,' rejoined Fresco, to
whom his niece's airs and graces were mighty disp