that thou callest me?' 'Ay,' answered the other, 'come
hither.' Accordingly, Pinuccio, dissembling and making a show of being
sleepy-eyed, arose at last from beside the host and went back to bed
with Adriano. The day come and they being risen, the host fell to
laughing and mocking at Pinuccio and his dreams; and so they passed
from one jest to another, till the young men, having saddled their
rounceys and strapped on their valises and drunken with the host,
remounted to horse and rode away to Florence, no less content with the
manner in which the thing had betided than with the effect itself
thereof. Thereafter Pinuccio found other means of foregathering with
Niccolosa, who vowed to her mother that he had certainly dreamt the
thing; wherefore the goodwife, remembering her of Adriano's
embracements, inwardly avouched herself alone to have waked."

THE SEVENTH STORY

[Day the Ninth]

TALANO DI MOLESE DREAMETH THAT A WOLF MANGLETH ALL HIS
WIFE'S NECK AND FACE AND BIDDETH HER BEWARE THEREOF; BUT SHE
PAYETH NO HEED TO HIS WARNING AND IT BEFALLETH HER EVEN AS
HE HAD DREAMED

Pamfilo's story being ended and the goodwife's presence of mind having
been commended of all, the queen bade Pampinea tell hers and she
thereupon began, "It hath been otherwhile discoursed among us,
charming ladies, of the truths foreshown by dreams, the which many of
our sex scoff at; wherefore, notwithstanding that which hath been said
thereof, I shall not scruple to tell you, in a very few words, that
which no great while ago befell a she-neighbour of mine for not giving
credit to a dream of herself seen by her husband.

I know not if you were acquainted with Talano di Molese, a very
worshipful man, who took to wife a young lady called Margarita, fair
over all others, but so humoursome, ill-conditioned and froward that
she would do nought of other folk's judgment, nor could others do
aught to her liking; the which, irksome as it was to Talano to endure,
natheless, as he could no otherwise, needs must he put up with. It
chanced one night that, being with this Margarita of his at an estate
he had in the country, himseemed in his sleep he saw his wife go
walking in a very fair wood which they had not far from their house,
and as she went, himseemed there came forth of a thicket a great and
fierce wolf, which sprang straight at her throat and pulling her to
the ground, enforced himself to carry her off, whilst she screame