waiting for the new bride of Walter; who being received by the ladies and going into the hall where the tables were set, Griselda came forward joyfully to meet her, saying, “Welcome, my lady.”  The ladies (who had much, but in vain, prayed Walter that he would arrange that Griselda should remain in the chamber, or that he would give her some one of the dresses which had been hers, in order that she should not appear in this way before his strangers) were set at the table and had begun to be served.  The girl was looked at by every man, and everybody said that Walter had made a good exchange:  but amongst the others Griselda praised her most; both her and her little brother.

Walter, who seemed to have finally learned as much as he desired of the patience of his lady, and seeing that the enduring of these things produced no change in her, and being certain that this did not happen from hypocrisy, because he knew that she was very wise, considered it time to lighten her of the bitterness which he felt that she held hidden in her heart under her strong self-control.  Therefore, calling her in presence of all the company, and smiling, he said, “What do you think of our bride?” “My lord,” replied Griselda, “she seems to me very good, and if she is as wise as she is beautiful, as I believe, I do not doubt in the least that you will live with her the most comfortable gentleman in the world.  But I pray you as much as I can that these cruelties which you bestowed on the other which was yours you will not give to this one, because I believe that she could not support them; partly because she is young, and again because she has been brought up delicately, while the other has been always accustomed to hardships from a child.”  Walter, seeing that she firmly believed that this one was his wife, nor on that account spoke otherwise than well, made her sit down at his side and said:—­“Griselda, it is time now that you should feel the rewards of your long patience, and that those who have considered me a cruel, wicked, and brutal man should know that that which I have done was done for a purpose, wishing to teach you to be a wife, and them to know how to take and to keep one, and for myself for the establishment of unbroken quiet while I live with you.  Because when I came to take a wife I had great fear that this could not be the case, and on that account, and to assure myself in all the ways which you know, I have tried to pain you.  And yet I have never perceived that either in thought or deed have you ever contradicted my pleasure:  convinced that I shall have from you that comfort which I desire, I now intend to return to you all at once what I took from you on several occasions; and with the greatest tenderness to heal the wounds which I have given you; and so with a happy soul know this one whom you believed to be my bride, and this one her brother, as your and my children; they are those whom you and many others have long believed that I had cruelly caused to be killed; and