to behold this new serving-woman, and when she
saw her husband with the hood upon his head and the bolter in his hands,
she began to laugh so exceedingly, clapping her hands the while, that
she was scarce able to say to him--

"How much dost want a month, wench, for thy labour?"

The husband, on hearing this voice, realised that he had been deceived,
and, throwing down both what he was holding and wearing, he ran at the
girl, calling her a thousand bad names. Had his wife not set herself in
front of the maid, he would have given her wage enough for her quarter;
but at last all was settled to the content of the parties concerned, and
thenceforward they lived together without quarrelling. (2)

2 The Italian Charles, equerry to the King, to whom the
leading part is assigned in Queen Margaret's tale, may have
been Charles de San Severino, who figures among the
equerries with a salary of 200 _livres_, in the roll of the
royal household for 1522. The San Severino family, one of
the most prominent of Naples, had attached itself to the
French cause at the time of the expedition of Charles VIII.,
whom several of its members followed to France. In 1522 we
find a "Monsieur de Saint-Severin" holding the office of
first _maitre d'hotel_ to Francis I., and over a course of
several years his son figures among the _enfants
d'honneur_.--B. J. and Ed.

"What say you, ladies, of this wife? Was she not sensible to make sport
of her husband's sport?"

"'Twas no sport," said Saffredent, "for the husband who failed in his
purpose."

"I believe," said Ennasuite, "that he had more delight in laughing with
his wife, than at killing himself at his age with his serving-woman."

"Still, I should be sorely vexed," said Simontault, "to be discovered so
bravely coifed."

"I have heard," said Parlamente, "that it was not your wife's fault that
she did not once discover you in very much the same attire in spite of
all your craft, and that since then she has known no repose."

"Rest content with what befalls your own house," said Simontault,
"without inquiring into what befalls mine. Nevertheless, my wife has no
reason to complain of me, and even did I act as you say, she would never
have occasion to notice it through any lack of what she might need."

"Virtuous women," said Longarine, "require nothing but the love of
their husbands, which alone can satisfy them. Those who seek a br