The first thing the lady did, when she had heard Federigo’s story, and seen the relics of the bird, was to chide him that he had killed so fine a falcon to furnish a woman with a breakfast; after which the magnanimity of her host, which poverty had been and was powerless to impair, elicited no small share of inward commendation.  Then, frustrate of her hope of possessing the falcon, and doubting of her son’s recovery, she took her leave with the heaviest of hearts, and hied her back to the boy:  who, whether for fretting, that he might not have the falcon, or by the unaided energy of his disorder, departed this life not many days after, to the exceeding great grief of his mother.  For a while she would do nought but weep and bitterly bewail herself; but being still young, and left very wealthy, she was often urged by her brothers to marry again, and though she would rather have not done so, yet being importuned, and remembering Federigo’s high desert, and the magnificent generosity with which he had finally killed his falcon to do her honour, she said to her brothers:—­“Gladly, with your consent, would I remain a widow, but if you will not be satisfied except I take a husband, rest assured that none other will I ever take save Federigo degli Alberighi.”  Whereupon her brothers derided her, saying:—­“Foolish woman, what is’t thou sayst?  How shouldst thou want Federigo, who has not a thing in the world?” To whom she answered:—­“My brothers, well wot I that ’tis as you say; but I had rather have a man without wealth than wealth without a man.”  The brothers, perceiving that her mind was made up, and knowing Federigo for a good man and true, poor though he was, gave her to him with all her wealth.  And so Federigo, being mated with such a wife, and one that he had so much loved, and being very wealthy to boot, lived happily, keeping more exact accounts, to the end of his days.

NOVEL X.

—­ Pietro di Vinciolo goes from home to sup:  his wife brings a boy into the house to bear her company:  Pietro returns, and she hides her gallant under a hen-coop:  Pietro explains that in the house of Ercolano, with whom he was to have supped, there was discovered a young man bestowed there by Ercolano’s wife:  the lady thereupon censures Ercolano’s wife:  but unluckily an ass treads on the fingers of the boy that is hidden under the hen-coop, so that he cries for pain:  Pietro runs to the place, sees him, and apprehends the trick played on him by his wife, which nevertheless he finally condones, for that he is not himself free from blame. —­