" "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.
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