Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/76

54 “My dear lord,” answered Griselda, meekly “in all things I have kept my vow. I should have been most happy if love for me had brought thy heart to forget my low station. But in all things I am content. Only one last favor I ask of thee. Thy new wife will be young, high-bred, impatient of restraint, tender to rude sorrow. Do not put on her faith such trials as I have borne, lest her heart bend not under them, but break at once.”

When she had done speaking, she turned to her closet, where all these years she had kept the simple russet gown which she had worn on the day Duke Walter wooed her, and laying aside her velvet robes, her laces, and jewels, she put it on, went before the Duke again, ready to depart from the palace forever. But he had one request to make of her. It was that she would stay to superintend the bride’s coming, to see that the feast was prepared, the wedding chamber ready, and the guests made welcome, because none so well as she knew the management of the affairs in the palace.

Then Griselda went among the servants, and saw that the feast was made, and all things were in order, concealing her aching heart under a face which tried to smile. When at evening she heard the fickle people shouting in the streets, end saw the roses strewn as they had been on