There was a king in the line named Lear. He founded the city now
called Leicester. He had three daughters, whose names were Gonilla,
Regana, and Cordiella. Cordiella was her father's favorite child. He
was, however, jealous of the affections of them all, and one day he
called them to him, and asked them for some assurance of their love.
The two eldest responded by making the most extravagant protestations.
They loved their father a thousand times better than their own souls.
They could not express, they said, the ardor and strength of their
attachment, and called Heaven and earth to witness that these
protestations were sincere.

Cordiella, all this time, stood meekly and silently by, and when her
father asked her how it was with her, she replied, "Father, my love
toward you is as my duty bids. What can a father ask, or a daughter
promise more? They who pretend beyond this only flatter."

The king, who was old and childish, was much pleased with the
manifestation of love offered by Gonilla and Regana, and thought that
the honest Cordiella was heartless and cold. He treated her with
greater and greater neglect and finally decided to leave her without
any portion whatever, while he divided his kingdom between the other
two, having previously married them to princes of high rank. Cordiella
was, however, at last made choice of for a wife by a French prince,
who, it seems, knew better than the old king how much more to
be relied upon was unpretending and honest truth than empty and
extravagant profession. He married the portionless Cordiella, and took
her with him to the Continent.

The old king now having given up his kingdom to his eldest daughters,