rca._ Hush! Giovanni! But, it being a matter of discipline, who
knows but she might.

_Boccaccio._ Discipline! ay, ay, ay! faith and troth there are some
who want it.

_Petrarca._ You really terrify me. These are sad surmises.

_Boccaccio._ Sad enough: but I am keeper of my handmaiden's probity.

_Petrarca._ It could not be kept safer.

_Boccaccio._ I wonder what the Frate would be putting into her head?

_Petrarca._ Nothing, nothing: be assured.

_Boccaccio._ Why did he ask her all those questions?

_Petrarca._ Confessors do occasionally take circuitous ways to arrive
at the secrets of the human heart.

_Boccaccio._ And sometimes they drive at it, me thinks, a whit too
directly. He had no business to make remarks about me.

_Petrarca._ Anxiety.

_Boccaccio._ 'Fore God, Francesco, he shall have more of that; for I
will shut him out the moment I am again up and stirring, though he
stand but a nose's length off. I have no fear about the girl; no
suspicion of her. He might whistle to the moon on a frosty night, and
expect as reasonably her descending. Never was a man so entirely at
his ease as I am about that; never, never. She is adamant; a bright
sword now first unscabbarded; no breath can hang about it. A seal of
beryl, of chrysolite, of ruby; to make impressions (all in good time
and proper place though) and receive none: incapable, just as they
are, of splitting, or cracking, or flawing, or harbouring dirt. Let
him mind that. Such, I assure you, is that poor little wench,
Assuntina.

_Petrarca._ I am convinced that so well-behaved a young creature as
Assunta----

_Boccaccio._ Right! Assunta is her name by baptism; we usually call
her Assuntina, because she is slender, and scarcely yet full-grown,
perhaps: but who can tell?

As for those friars, I never was a friend to impudence: I hate loose
suggestions. In girls' minds you will find little dust but what is
carried there by gusts from without. They seldom want sweeping; when
they do, the broom should be taken from behind the house door, and the
master should be the sacristan.

... Scarcely were these words uttered when Assunta was heard running
up the stairs; and the next moment she rapped. Being ordered to come
in, she entered with a willow twig in her hand, from the middle of
which willow twig (for she held the two ends together) hung a fish,
shining with green and gold.

'What hast there, young maiden?' said Ser Francesco.

'A fish, Riverenza