trary: "I have planted, Apollos
watered; but God gave the increase."--I _Corinthians_ iii.
6.--Ed.

"You would follow," said Parlamente, "the opinion of those wicked men
who take a passage of Scripture that is in their favour and leave one
that is against them. If you had read St. Paul to the end, you would
have found that he commends himself to the ladies, who greatly laboured
with him in the work of the Gospel."

"However that may be," said Longarine, "the woman in the story is well
worthy of praise both for the love she bore her husband, on whose behalf
she risked her own life, and for the faith she had in God, who, as we
see, did not forsake her."

"I think," said Ennasuite, "as far as the first is concerned, that there
is no woman present but would do as much to save her husband's life."

"I think," said Parlamente, "that some husbands are such brutes that the
women who live with them should not find it strange to live among their
fellows."

Ennasuite, who took these words to herself, could not refrain from
saying--

"Provided the beasts did not bite me, their company would be more
pleasant to me than that of men, who are choleric and intolerable. But I
abide by what I have said, that, if my husband were in a like danger, I
should not leave him to die."

"Beware," said Nomerfide, "of loving too fondly, for excess of love will
deceive both him and you. There is a medium in all things, and through
lack of knowledge love often gives birth to hate."

"Methinks," said Simontault, "you have not carried your discourse so far
without having an instance to confirm it. If, then, you know such a one,
I give you my place that you may tell it to us."

"Well," said Nomerfide, "the tale shall, as is my wont, be a short and a
merry one."

[Illustration: 161.jpg Tailpiece]

[Illustration: 163a. The Apothecary's Wife giving the Dose of Cantharides
to her Husband]

[The Apothecary's Wife giving the Dose of Cantharides to her Husband]

[Illustration: 163.jpg Page Image]

_TALE LXVIII_.

_An apothecary's wife, finding that her husband made no
great account of her, and wishing to be better loved by him,
followed the advice that he had given to a "commere" (1) of
his, whose sickness was of the same kind as her own; but she
prospered not so well as the other, and instead of love
reaped hate_.

1 Mr W. Kelly has pointed out (Bohn's _Heptameron_, p. 395)
that