thanks to Fra Biagio! I not only am sitting up,
but have taken a draught of fresh air at the window, and every leaf
had a little present of sunshine for me.

There is one pleasure, Fra Biagio, which I fancy you never have
experienced, and I hardly know whether I ought to wish it you; the
first sensation of health after a long confinement.

_Frate._ Thanks! infinite! I would take any man's word for that,
without a wish to try it. Everybody tells me I am exactly what I was a
dozen years ago; while, for my part, I see everybody changed: those
who ought to be much about my age, even those.... Per Bacco! I told
them my thoughts when they had told me theirs; and they were not so
agreeable as they used to be in former days.

_Boccaccio._ How people hate sincerity!

Cospetto! why, Frate! what hast got upon thy toes? Hast killed some
Tartar and tucked his bow into one, and torn the crescent from the
vizier's tent to make the other match it? Hadst thou fallen in thy
mettlesome expedition (and it is a mercy and a miracle thou didst
not) those sacrilegious shoes would have impaled thee.

_Frate._ It was a mistake in the shoemaker. But no pain or incommodity
whatsoever could detain me from paying my duty to Ser Canonico, the
first moment I heard of his auspicious arrival, or from offering my
congratulations to Ser Giovanni, on the annunciation that he was
recovered and looking out of the window. All Tuscany was standing on
the watch for it, and the news flew like lightning. By this time it is
upon the Danube.

And pray, Ser Canonico, how does Madonna Laura do?

_Petrarca._ Peace to her gentle spirit! she is departed.

_Frate._ Ay, true. I had quite forgotten: that is to say, I recollect
it. You told us as much, I think, in a poem on her death. Well, and do
you know! our friend Giovanni here is a bit of an author in his way.

_Boccaccio._ Frate! you confuse my modesty.

_Frate._ Murder will out. It is a fact, on my conscience. Have you
never heard anything about it, Canonico! Ha! we poets are sly fellows:
we can keep a secret.

_Boccaccio._ Are you quite sure you can?

_Frate._ Try, and trust me with any. I am a confessional on legs:
there is no more a whisper in me than in a woolsack.

I am in feather again, as you see; and in tune, as you shall hear.

April is not the month for moping. Sing it lustily.

_Boccaccio._ Let it be your business to sing it, being a Frate; I can
only recite it.

_Frate._ Pray do, then