wife and he together dined or supped with that neighbour of theirs, and then she made a merry quarrel with him for making her husband so good cheer outside that she could not keep him at home.  “Forsooth, mistress,” quoth he (for he was a dry merry man), “in my company no thing keepeth him but one.  Serve him with the same, and he will never be away from you.”  “What gay thing may that be?” quoth our cousin then.  “Forsooth, mistress,” quoth he, “your husband loveth well to talk, and when he sitteth with me, I let him have all the words.”  “All the words?” quoth she, “marry, than am I content!  He shall have all the words with good will, as he hath ever had.  But I speak them all myself, and give them all to him, and for aught I care for them, so shall he have them all.  But otherwise to say that he shall have them all, you shall keep him still rather than he get the half!”

Anthony:  Forsooth, cousin, I can soon guess which of our kin she was.  I wish we had none, for all her merry words, who would let their husbands talk less!

Vincent:  Forsooth, she is not so merry but what she is equally good.  But where you find fault, uncle, that I speak not enough:  I was in good faith ashamed that I spoke so much and moved you such questions as (I found upon your answer) might better have been spared, they were of so little worth.  But now, since I see you be so well content that I shall not forbear boldly to show my folly, I will be no more so shamefast but will ask you what I like.

I

And first, good uncle, ere we proceed further, I will be bold to move you one thing more of that which we talked of when I was here before.  For when I revolved in my mind again the things that were concluded here by you, methought you would in no wise wish that in any tribulation men should seek for comfort in either worldly things or fleshly.  And this opinion of yours, uncle, seemeth somewhat hard, for a merry tale with a friend refresheth a man much, and without any harm delighteth his mind and amendeth his courage and his stomach, so that it seemeth but well done to take such recreation.  And Solomon saith, I believe, that men should in heaviness give the sorry man wine, to make him forget his sorrow.  And St. Thomas saith that proper pleasant talking, which is called eutrapelia, is a good virtue, serving to refresh the mind and make it quick and eager to labour and study again, whereas continual fatigue would make it dull and deadly.

Anthony:  Cousin, I forgot not that point, but I longed not much to touch it.  For neither might I well utterly forbear it, where it might befall that it should not hurt; and on the other hand, if it should so befall, methought that it should little need to give any man counsel to it—­folk are prone enough to such fancies of their own mind!  You may see this by ourselves who, coming now together to talk of as earnest sad matter as men can devise, were fallen yet even at the first into wanton idle tales.  And of truth, cousin, as you know very well, I myself am by nature even half a gigglot and more.  I wish I could as easily mend my fault as I well know it, but scant can I refrain it, as old a fool as I am.  Howbeit, I will not be so partial to my fault as to praise it.