might gladden thy heart." Whereupon:--"Well wist I," replied Talano,
"that thou wouldst so say, for such is ever the requital of those that
comb scurfy heads; but whatever thou mayst be pleased to believe, I for
my part speak to thee for thy good, and again I advise thee to keep
indoors to-day, or at least not to walk in the wood." "Good," returned
the lady, "I will look to it," and then she began communing with herself
on this wise:--Didst mark how artfully he thinks to have scared me from
going into the wood to-day? Doubtless 'tis that he has an assignation
there with some light o' love, with whom he had rather I did not find
him. Ah! he would sup well with the blind, and what a fool were I to
believe him! But I warrant he will be disappointed, and needs must I,
though I stay there all day long, see what commerce it is that he will
adventure in to-day.

Having so said, she quitted the house on one side, while her husband did
so on the other; and forthwith, shunning observation as best she might,
she hied her to the wood, and hid her where 'twas most dense, and there
waited on the alert, and glancing, now this way and now that, to see if
any were coming. And while thus she stood, nor ever a thought of a wolf
crossed her mind, lo, forth of a close covert hard by came a wolf of
monstrous size and appalling aspect, and scarce had she time to say, God
help me! before he sprang upon her and griped her by the throat so
tightly that she might not utter a cry, but, passive as any lambkin, was
borne off by him, and had certainly been strangled, had he not
encountered some shepherds, who with shouts compelled him to let her go.
The shepherds recognized the poor hapless woman, and bore her home, where
the physicians by dint of long and careful treatment cured her; howbeit
the whole of her throat and part of her face remained so disfigured that,
fair as she had been before, she was ever thereafter most foul and
hideous to look upon. Wherefore, being ashamed to shew her face, she did