Page:The Way of a Virgin.djvu/229

Rh way from France on account of love, can it be that your frozen nature is so sluggish that, when Fortune lets you spend the whole of a long night by the side of her for whom you have shown such great tokens of love, you failed to scent out who she was?"

Then, having led him up to the bedside, she let him see and know clearly that it was her sister and no one else who had lain beside him during the night which was just passed.

When he perceived this thing the cavalier was not a little ashamed of himself, but finally all four laughed and joked so merrily that they could scarce stand upright on their feet; and because of the pass to which things had come, it seemed meet to all that, for the setting right of the fault aforesaid, they should once more divide in pairs.

Whereupon Ciarlo, having got back into bed, plucked the fresh flower and the earliest fruit of the goodly garden which fell to his lot, and the two friends remained there, each taking delight with his own lady, until the husband came back from western parts.