s had commanded her, and her
master in great content went to tell the good news to his friend. The
latter then begged that, since he had been concerned in the business,
he might have part in the result. This was promised him, and, when the
appointed hour was come, the master went to lie, as he thought, with the
maid-servant; but his wife, yielding up the authority of commanding for
the pleasure of obeying, had put herself in the servant's place, and she
received him, not in the manner of a wife, but after the fashion of
a frightened maid. This she did so well that her husband suspected
nothing.

I cannot tell you which of the two was the better pleased, he at the
thought that he was deceiving his wife, or she at really deceiving her
husband. When he had remained with her, not as long as he wished, but
according to his powers, which were those of a man who had long been
married, he went out of doors, found his friend, who was much younger
and lustier than himself, and told him gleefully that he had never met
with better fortune. "You know what you promised me," said his friend to
him.

"Go quickly then," replied the husband, "for she may get up, or my wife
have need of her."

The friend went off and found the supposed maid-servant, who, thinking
her husband had returned, denied him nothing that he asked of her, or
rather took, for he durst not speak. He remained with her much longer
than her husband had done, whereat she was greatly astonished, for she
had not been wont to pass such nights. Nevertheless, she endured it all
with patience, comforting herself with the thought of what she would say
to him on the morrow, and of the ridicule that she would cast upon him.

Towards daybreak the man rose from beside her, and toying with her as he
was going away, snatched from her finger the ring with which her husband
had espoused her, and which the women of that part of the country guard
with great superstition. She who keeps it till her death is held in high
honour, while she who chances to lose it, is thought lightly of as a
person who has given her faith to some other than her husband.

The wife, however, was very glad to have it taken, thinking it would
be a sure proof of how she had deceived her husband. When the friend
returned, the husband asked him how he had fared. He replied that he was
of the same opinion as himself, and that he would have remained longer
had he not feared to be surprised by daybreak. Then they b