elcome us, and of the glad tidings with
which we were to rejoice her on that Christmas day.

There is no moral to my story. I may not end with one of those graceful
admonitions beloved of Messer Boccacci to whom in my jester's days
I owed so much. Not mine is it to say with him "Wherefore, gentle
ladies"--or "noble sirs--beware of this, avoid that other thing."

Mine is a plain tale, written in the belief that some account of
those old happenings that befell me may offer you some measure of
entertainment, and written, too, in the support of certain truths which
my contemporaries have been shamefully inclined and simoniacally induced
to suppress. Many chroniclers set forth how the Lord Vitellozzo Vitelli
and his associates were barbarously strangled by Cesare's orders at
Sinigaglia, and wilfully--for I cannot believe that it results from
ignorance--are they silent touching the reason, leaving you to imagine
that it was done in obedience to a ruthlessness of character beyond
parallel, so that you may come to consider Cesare Borgia as black as
they were paid to paint him.

To confute them do I set down these facts of which my knowledge cannot
be called in question, and also that you may know the true story of
Paola di Santafior--and more particularly that part of it which lies
beyond the death she did not die.

The sun of that Christmas day was setting as we drew near to Biancomonte
and the humble dwelling of my old mother. We fell into talk of her once
more. Suddenly Paola turned in her saddle to confront me.

"Tell me, Lord of Biancomonte, will she love me a little, think you?"
she asked, to plague me.

"Who would not love you, Lady of Biancomonte?" counter-questioned I.

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