y the lady had ever granted
him all that he had asked of her for his gratification. "Then," promptly
continued the lady, "if he has ever had of me as much as sufficed for his
solace, what was I or am I to do with the surplus? Am I to cast it to the
dogs? Is it not much better to bestow it on a gentleman that loves me
more dearly than himself, than to suffer it to come to nought or worse?"
Which jocund question being heard by well-nigh all the folk of Prato, who
had flocked thither all agog to see a dame so fair and of such quality on
her trial for such an offence, they laughed loud and long, and then all
with one accord, and as with one voice, exclaimed that the lady was in
the right and said well; nor left they the court until in concert with
the Podesta they had so altered the harsh statute as that thenceforth
only such women as should wrong their husbands for money should be within
its purview.

Wherefore Rinaldo left the court, discomfited of his foolish enterprise;
and the lady blithe and free, as if rendered back to life from the
burning, went home triumphant.

NOVEL VIII.

--
Fresco admonishes his niece not to look at herself in the glass, if 'tis,
as she says, grievous to her to see nasty folk.
--

'Twas not at first without some flutterings of shame, evinced by the
modest blush mantling on their cheeks, that the ladies heard Filostrato's
story; but afterwards, exchanging glances, they could scarce forbear to
laugh, and hearkened tittering. However, when he had done, the queen
turning to Emilia bade her follow suit. Whereupon Emilia, fetching a deep
breath as if she were roused from sleep, thus began:--Loving ladies,
brooding thought has kept my spirit for so long time remote from here
that perchance I may make a shift to satisfy our queen with a much
shorter story than would have been forthcoming but for my absence of
mind, wherein I purpose to tell you how a young woman's folly was
corrected by her uncle with a pleasant jest, had she but had the sense to
apprehend it. My story, then, is of one, Fresco da Celatico by name, that
had a niece, Ciesca, as she was playfully called, who, being fair of face
and person, albeit she had none of those angelical charms that we
ofttimes see, had so superlative a conceit of herself, that she had
contracted a habit of disparaging both men and women and all that she
saw, entirely regardless of her own defects, though for odiousness,
tiresomeness, and petulance she had