In the town of Pampeluna there lived a lady who was accounted beautiful
and virtuous, as well as the chastest and most pious in the land. She
loved her husband, and was so obedient to him that he had entire trust
in her. This lady was constantly present at Divine service and at
sermons, and she used to persuade her husband and children to be hearers
with her. She had reached the age of thirty years, at which women are
wont to claim discretion rather than beauty, when on the first day of
Lent she went to the church to receive the emblem of death. (1) Here she
found that the sermon was beginning, the preacher being a Grey Friar,
a man esteemed holy by all the people on account of his great austerity
and goodness of life, which made him thin and pale, yet not to such a
point as to prevent him from being one of the handsomest men imaginable.

The lady listened piously to his sermon, her eyes being fixed on this
reverend person, and her ears and mind ready to hearken to what he said.
And so it happened that the sweetness of his words passed through the
lady's ears even to her heart, while the comeliness and grace of his
countenance passed through her eyes and so smote her soul that she was
as one entranced. When the sermon was over, she looked carefully to
see where the Friar would celebrate mass, (2) and there she presented
herself to take the ashes from his hand. The latter was as fair and
white as any lady's, and this pious lady paid more attention to it than
to the ashes which it gave her.

1 To receive the ashes on Ash Wednesday.--M.

2 That is, in which of the chapels. A friar would not
officiate at the high altar.--Ed.

Feeling persuaded that a spiritual love such as this, with any pleasure