Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/118

Rh he was for sure in no wise her equal in merit, nor deserving of her or of the tender tears her fair eyes did shed after his death. Yet would she have been right glad to live on a while longer for the love of her daughter, the which she was leaving a tender slip of a girl. This last was a good and excellent reason, while regrets for an husband that was both foolish and vexatious are surely but vain and idle.

Thus she, seeing now no remedy was of avail, and feeling her own pulse, which she did herself try and find to be galloping fast (for she had understanding of all such matters), two days before she died, did send to summon her daughter, and did make her a very good and pious exhortation, such as no other mother mayhap that I know of could have made a finer one or one better expressed,—at once instructing her how to live in this world and how to win the grace of God in the next; this ended, she did give her her blessing, bidding her no more trouble with her tears the sweet easefulness and repose she was about to enjoy with God. Presently she did ask for her mirror, and looking at herself very fixedly therein, did exclaim, "Ah! traitor face, that doth in no wise declare my sickness (for indeed 'twas as fair to look on as ever), thou art yet unchanged; but very soon death, which is drawing nigh, will have the better of thy beauty, which shall rot away and be devoured of worms." Moreover she had put the most part of her rings on her fingers; and gazing on these, and her hand withal, which was very well shaped: "Lo! a vanity I have much loved in days gone-by; yet now I do quit the same willingly, to bedeck me in the other world with another much fairer adornment."

Then seeing her sisters weeping their eyes out at her bedside, she did comfort them, exhorting them to take in