Page:Tales from Chaucer.djvu/232

 people she would with her sagacity, and placid demeanour and persuasiveness, smooth into peace and goodwill. So wise and ripe was her discourse, and her judgment so equitable, that the people would say, she was sent from heaven to redress the wrongs of mankind.

To the great joy of all, in due time Griselda presented her husband with a daughter.

During the suckling of this babe, it entered the mind of the Marquis to put his wife upon some severe trials that he might prove her steadfastness of heart:—a needless course, however some may praise its subtleness of purpose, for he had already assayed, and found her ever good and true:—evil, therefore, must be the thought, that, without cause, could put a wife to the anguish of trial. Nevertheless, he acted as you shall hear. One night, as she lay in bed, he approached her with a stern and troubled face, and said: 'I presume, Griselda, you have not forgotten the day on which I took you from your humble plight, and raised you to the highest rank of nobility—I say, you have not lost sight of your former humbleness of condition; take heed, then, of what I am