Page:The Way of a Virgin.djvu/178

Rh the girl began to complain before her mother that she had not been able to sleep that night for the excessive heat. Quoth the lady:

"Of what heat dost thou speak, daughter? Nay, it was nowise hot."

"Mother mine," answered Caterina, "you should say 'to my seeming' and belike you would say sooth; but you should consider how much hotter are young girls than ladies in years."

"Daughter mine," rejoined the lady, "that is true; but I cannot make it cold and hot at my pleasure, as belike thou wouldst have me do. We must put up with the weather, such as the seasons make it; maybe this next night will be cooler and thou wilt sleep better."

"God grant it may be so!" cried Caterina. "But it is not usual for the nights to go cooling, as it groweth towards summer."

"Then what wouldst thou have done?" asked the mother; and she answered:

"An it please my father and you, I would fain have a little bed made in the gallery, that is beside his chamber and over his garden, and there sleep. There I should hear the nightingale sing and having a cooler place to lie in, I should fare much better than in your chamber."

Quoth the mother: "Daughter, comfort thyself; I will tell thy father, and as he will, so will we do."

Messer Lizio, hearing all this from his wife, said; for that he was an old man and maybe therefore somewhat cross-grained:

"What nightingale is this to whose song she would sleep? I will yet make her sleep to the chirp of the crickets."