intended that her work should include such short, slight
anecdotes. However, already at this stage--the fifty-fifth
only of the hundred tales which she proposed writing--she
probably found fewer materials at her disposal than she had
anticipated, and harked back to incidents of her earlier
years, which she had at first thought too trifling to
record. Still, slight as this story may be, it is not
without point. The example set by the wife of the Saragossa
merchant has been followed in modern times in more ways than
one.--Ed.

When the burial was over and the first tears were shed, the wife, who
was no more of a fool than Spanish women are used to be, went to the
servant who with herself had heard his master declare his desire, and
said to him--

"Methinks I have lost enough in the person of a husband I loved so
dearly, without afterwards losing his possessions. Yet would I not
disobey his word, but rather better his intention; for the poor man, led
astray by the greed of the priests, thought to make a great sacrifice to
God in bestowing after his death a sum of money, not a crown of which,
as you well know, he would have given in his lifetime to relieve even
the sorest need. I have therefore bethought me that we will do what
he commanded at his death, and in still better fashion than he himself
would have done if had he lived a fortnight longer. But no living person
must know aught of the matter."

When she had received the servant's promise to keep it secret, she said
to him--