hey fall into the slightest error towards
you, they lose on a Saturday the toil of an entire week. Thus you are
minded to rule, and I for my part will consent to it provided, however,
that all other husbands agree."

"It is reasonable," said Parlamente, "that man should rule us as our
head, but not that he should forsake us or treat us ill."

"God has provided so wisely," said Oisille, "both for man and for woman,
that I hold marriage, if it be not abused, to be the goodliest and
securest condition imaginable, and I am sure that, whatever they may
seem to do, all here present think the same. And if the man claims to
be wiser than the woman, he will be the more severely blamed should the
fault come from him. But enough of such talk. Let us now see to whom
Dagoucin will give his vote."

"I give it," he said, "to Longarine."

"You do me a great pleasure," she replied, "for I have read a story that
is worthy to follow yours. Since we are set upon praising the virtuous
patience of ladies, I will show you one more worthy of praise than she
of whom we have just been speaking. And she is the more deserving of
esteem in that she was a city dame, and therefore one of those whose
breeding is less virtuous than that of others."

[Illustration: 081.jpg Tailpiece]

[Illustration: 083a.jpg The Lady of Tours questioning her Husband's Mistress]

[The Lady of Tours questioning her Husband's Mistress]

[Illustration: 083.jpg Page Image]

_TALE XXXVIII_.

_A towns-woman of Tours returned so much good for all the
evil treatment she had received from her husband, that the
latter forsook the mistress whom he was quietly maintaining,
and returned to his wife_. (1)

1 It is probable that the incidents related in this tale
occurred between 1460 and 1470. They will be found recorded
in the _Menagier de Paris_. (See Baron Pichon's edition,
1847, vol. i. p. 237). A similar narrative figures in some
editions of Morlini's tales, notably the _Novello, Fabello,
et Comedies, Neapoli_, 1520. We further find it in
Gueudeville's translation of Erasmus's Colloquies (_Dialogue
sur le mariage, collogues, &c., Leyden_, 1720, vol. i. p.
87), and Mr. Walter Keily has pointed out (the _Heptameron_,
Bohn, 1864) that William Warner worked the same incidents
into his poem _Albion's England_, his stanzas being
reproduced in Percy's _Reliques_ under the title of _The