e lady to hear, it availed him but little.

Now not long afterwards it so befell that, whatever may have been his
reason, Rinaldo betook him to friarage; and whether it was that he found
good pasture therein, or what not, he persevered in that way of life. And
though for a while after he was turned friar, he laid aside the love he
bore his gossip, and certain other vanities, yet in course of time,
without putting off the habit, he resumed them, and began to take a pride
in his appearance, and to go dressed in fine clothes, and to be quite the
trim gallant, and to compose songs and sonnets and ballades, and to sing
them, and to make a brave shew in all else that pertained to his new
character. But why enlarge upon our Fra Rinaldo, of whom we speak? what
friars are there that do not the like? Ah! opprobrium of a corrupt world!
Sleek-faced and sanguine, daintily clad, dainty in all their accessories,
they ruffle it shamelessly before the eyes of all, shewing not as doves
but as insolent cocks with raised crest and swelling bosom, and, what is
worse (to say nought of the vases full of electuaries and unguents, the
boxes packed with divers comfits, the pitchers and phials of artificial
waters, and oils, the flagons brimming with Malmsey and Greek and other
wines of finest quality, with which their cells are so packed that they
shew not as the cells of friars, but rather as apothecaries' or
perfumers' shops), they blush not to be known to be gouty, flattering
themselves that other folk wot not that long fasts and many of them, and
coarse fare and little of it, and sober living, make men lean and thin
and for the most part healthy; or if any malady come thereof, at any rate
'tis not the gout, the wonted remedy for which is chastity and all beside
that belongs to the regimen of a humble friar. They flatter themselves,
too, that others wot not that over and above the meagre diet, long vigils
and orisons and strict discipline ought to mortify men and make them
pale, and that neither St. Dominic nor St. Francis went clad in stuff
dyed in grain or any other goodly garb, but in coarse woollen habits
innocent of the dyer's art, made to keep out the cold, and not for shew.
To which matters 'twere well God had a care, no less than to the souls of
the simple folk by whom our friars are nourished.

Fra Rinaldo, then, being come back to his first affections, took to
visiting his gossip very frequently; and gaining confidence, began with
m