a great sigh, said:—­“I have oftentimes heard it said, Sir, that there is no castle so strong, but that, if the siege be continued day by day, it will sooner or later be taken; which I now plainly perceive is my own case.  For so fairly have you hemmed me in with this, that, and the other pretty speech or the like blandishments, that you have constrained me to make nought of my former resolve, and, seeing that I find such favour with you, to surrender myself unto you.”  Whereto, overjoyed, the rector made answer:—­“Madam, I am greatly honoured; and, sooth to say, I marvelled not a little how you should hold out so long, seeing that I have never had the like experience with any other woman, insomuch that I have at times said:—­’Were women of silver, they would not be worth a denier, for there is none but would give under the hammer!’ But no more of this:  when and where may we come together?” “Sweet my lord,” replied the lady, “for the when, ’tis just as we may think best, for I have no husband to whom to render account of my nights, but the where passes my wit to conjecture.”  “How so?” quoth the rector.  “Why not in your own house?” “Sir,” replied the lady, “you know that I have two brothers, both young men, who day and night bring their comrades into the house, which is none too large:  for which reason it might not be done there, unless we were minded to make ourselves, as it were, dumb and blind, uttering never a word, not so much as a monosyllable, and abiding in the dark:  in such sort indeed it might be, because they do not intrude upon my chamber; but theirs is so near to mine that the very least whisper could not but be heard.”  “Nay but, Madam,” returned the rector, “let not this stand in our way for a night or two, until I may bethink me where else we might be more at our ease.”  “Be that as you will, Sir,” quoth the lady, “I do but entreat that the affair be kept close, so that never a word of it get wind.”  “Have no fear on that score, Madam,” replied the priest; “and if so it may be, let us forgather to-night.”  “With pleasure,” returned the lady; and having appointed him how and when to come, she left him and went home.

Now the lady had a maid, that was none too young, and had a countenance the ugliest and most misshapen that ever was seen; for indeed she was flat-nosed, wry-mouthed, and thick-lipped, with huge, ill-set teeth, eyes that squinted and were ever bleared, and a complexion betwixt green and yellow, that shewed as if she had spent the summer not at Fiesole but at Sinigaglia:  besides which she was hip-shot and somewhat halting on the right side.  Her name was Ciuta, but, for that she was such a scurvy bitch to look upon, she was called by all folk Ciutazza.(1) And being thus misshapen of body, she was also not without her share of guile.  So the lady called her and said:—­“Ciutazza, so thou wilt do me a service to-night, I will give thee a fine new shift.”  At the mention of the shift Ciutazza made answer:—­“So