e
ancestors have been great gentlemen and lords of this country, whilst
thine have still been husbandmen, I mean that thou be no more my wife,
but that thou return to Giannucolo his house with the dowry which thou
broughtest me, and I will after bring hither another wife, for that I
have found one more sorted to myself.'

The lady, hearing this, contained her tears, contrary to the nature of
woman, though not without great unease, and answered, 'My lord, I ever
knew my mean estate to be nowise sortable with your nobility, and for
that which I have been with you I have still confessed myself indebted
to you and to God, nor have I ever made nor held it mine, as given to
me, but have still accounted it but as a loan. It pleaseth you to
require it again and it must and doth please me to restore it to you.
Here is your ring wherewith you espoused me; take it. You bid me carry
away with me that dowry which I brought hither, which to do you will
need no paymaster and I neither purse nor packhorse, for I have not
forgotten that you had me naked, and if you account it seemly that
this my body, wherein I have carried children begotten of you, be seen
of all, I will begone naked; but I pray you, in requital of my
maidenhead, which I brought hither and bear not hence with me, that it
please you I may carry away at the least one sole shift over and above
my dowry.' Gualtieri, who had more mind to weep than to otherwhat,
natheless kept a stern countenance and said, 'So be it; carry away a
shift.' As many as stood around besought him to give her a gown, so
that she who had been thirteen years and more his wife should not be
seen go forth of his house on such mean and shameful wise as it was to
depart in her shift; but their prayers all went for nothing; wherefore
the lady, having commended them to God, went forth his house in her
shift, barefoot and nothing on her head, and returned to her father,
followed by the tears and lamentations of all who saw her. Giannucolo,
who had never been able to believe it true that Gualtieri should
entertain his daughter to wife and went in daily expectation of this
event, had kept her the clothes which she had put off the morning that
Gualtieri had married her and now brought them to her; whereupon she
donned them and addressed herself, as she had been wont to do, to the
little offices of her father's house, enduring the cruel onslaught of
hostile fortune with a stout heart.

Gualtieri, having done