Lady and her Daughter]

[The Grey Friar introducing his Comrade to the Lady and her
Daughter]

[Illustration: 051.jpg Page Image]




_TALE LVI_.

_A pious lady had recourse to a Grey Friar for his advice in
providing her daughter with a good husband, for whom she
proposed making it so profitable a match that the worthy
father, hoping to get the money she intended for her son-in-
law, married her daughter to a young comrade of his own. The
latter came every evening to sup and lie with his wife, and
in the morning returned in the garb of a scholar to his
convent. But one day while he was chanting mass, his wife
perceived him and pointed him out to her mother; who,
however, could not believe that it was he until she had
pulled off his coif while he was in bed, and from his tonsure
learned the whole truth, and the deceit used by her father
confessor_.

A French lady, whilst sojourning at Padua, was informed that there was
a Grey Friar in the Bishop's prison there, and finding that every one
spoke jestingly about him, she inquired the reason. She was told that
this Grey Friar, who was an old man, had been confessor to a very