Page:Tales from Chaucer.djvu/203

 greatest pleasure lay in being often widowed and wedded. They came, perhaps, nearest to the truth who said that we are best pleased when we are flattered; for one and all of us (more or less) are soonest won by flattery. Attention and assiduity are the surest lime-twigs to our hearts. Some said, we most love to be free to follow our own inclinations; moreover, to be esteemed wise, and not to be reproved for our faults; for in truth, there is not one of the sisterhood who, if she be fretted on a tender point, will not turn again; and the more sharply for feeling that she deserves the rebuke. He who may make the trial will prove the truth of what I say. Be we never so faulty within, we will be held wise and free from offence. Some folks held the opinion, that we delight in being thought stedfast, firm of purpose, and close keepers of a secret; but that tale is not worth a straw; for we women can hide nothing:—witness the folly of Midas's wife;—will ye hear the story?

Ovid, among other traditions, has related that Midas had growing under his long shaggy hair two ass's ears, which he concealed so