r
children_. (1)

In the town of Safagossa there lived a rich merchant, who, finding his
death draw nigh, and himself no longer able to retain possession of his
goods---which he had perchance gathered together by evil means--thought
that if he made a little present to God, he might thus after his death
make part atonement for his sins, just as though God sold His pardon for
money. Accordingly, when he had settled matters in respect of his house,
he declared it to be his desire that a fine Spanish horse which he
possessed should be sold for as much as it would bring, and the money
obtained for it be distributed among the poor. And he begged his wife
that she would in no wise fail to sell the horse as soon as he was dead,
and distribute the money in the manner he had commanded.

1 Whether the incidents here related be true or not, it is
probable that this was a story told to Queen Margaret at the
time of her journey to Spain in 1525. It will have been
observed (_ante_, pp. 36 and 42) that both the previous tale
and this one are introduced into the _Heptameron_ in a semi-
apologetic fashion, as though the Queen had not originally
intended that her work should include such short, slight
anecdotes. However, already at this stage--the fifty-fifth
only of the hundred tales which she proposed writing--she
probably found fewer materials at her disposal than she had
anticipated, and harked back to incidents of her earlier
years, which she had at first thought too trifling to
record. Still, slight as this story may be, it is not
without point. The example set by the wife of the Saragossa
merchant has been followed in modern times in more ways than
one.--Ed.

When the burial was over and the first tears were shed, the wife, who
was no more of a fool than Spanish women are used to be, went to the
servant who with herself had heard his master declare his desire, and
said to him--

"Methinks I have lost enough in the person of a husband I loved so
dearly, without afterwards losing his possessions. Yet would I not
disobey his word, but rather better his intention; for the poor man, led
astray by the greed of the priests, thought to make a great sacrifice to
God in bestowing after his death a sum of money, not a crown of which,
as you well know, he would have given in his lifetime to relieve even
the sorest need. I have therefore bethought me tha