Page:The Canterbury tales of Geoffrey Chaucer.djvu/26

 that no drop fell on her breast. Full much she took pleasure in good-breeding. She wiped her upper lip so clean that, when she had drunk her draught, no bit of grease could be seen in her cup; and she reached full seemly after her meat, and in truth she was very diverting and full pleasant and amiable of bearing, and took pains to imitate the manners of court, and be stately of demeanour, and to be held worthy of highest respect. But to speak of her conscience, she was so charitable and pitiful, she would weep if she saw a mouse caught in a trap, if it were dead or bleeding. Small hounds she had, that she fed with roast flesh, or milk and cake-bread; but sore she wept if one of them died, or men smote it sharply with a rod; and all was conscience and tender heart. Full seemly her wimple was fluted; her nose was prettily shaped, her eyes grey as glass, her mouth small and thereto full soft and red. But verily her forehead was fair; I trow it was almost a span high, for certainly she was not undergrown. Her cloak was full graceful, as I was ware. About her arm she wore, of small coral, a set of beads with knobs of green, and thereon hung a brooch of bright gold, on which was writ first a crowned A and afterward Amor vincit omnia. Another nun she had with her, who was her chaplain, and three Priests.

A Monk there was, passing worthy, a bailiff to his house, who loved hunting; a manly man, well fit to be abbot. He had many a dainty horse in stable, and when he rode, men might hear his bridle jingling in a whistling wind as clear and loud as the chapel-bell, where this lord was prior. Because the rule of Saint Maur or of Saint Benedict was old and somewhat strait, this same monk let old things pass, and held his course after the new world. He gave not a plucked hen for that text which saith hunters