'I know not, fair shepherdesses, if in singing what you have heard I succeeded; but I know very well that Artidoro knew how to profit by it, since all the time he was in our village, though he often spoke to me, it was with so much reserve, secrecy, and modesty that idle eyes and chattering tongues neither had nor saw aught to say that might be prejudicial to our honour. But in the fear I had that, when the period Artidoro had promised to spend in our village was ended, he would have to go to his own, I sought, though at the cost of my modesty, that my heart should not remain with the regret of having kept silence on what it were useless to speak afterwards, when Artidoro had gone. And so, after my eyes gave leave for his most beauteous eyes to gaze on me lovingly, our tongues were not still, nor failed to show with words what up till then the eyes had so clearly declared by sign. Finally, you must know, friends, that one day when I found myself by chance alone with Artidoro, he disclosed to me, with tokens of an ardent love and courtesy, the true and honourable love he felt for me; and though I would have wished to play the reluctant prude, yet, because I was afraid, as I have already told you, that he would go, I did not wish to disdain him nor to dismiss him, and also because it seemed to me that the lack of sympathy, inspired or felt at the beginning of a love-affair, is the reason why those who are not very experienced in their passion, abandon and leave the enterprise they have begun. Wherefore I gave him answer such as I desired to give him. We agreed in the resolve that he should repair to his village, and a few days after should by some honourable mediation send to ask me in marriage from my parents; whereat he was so happy and content that he did not cease to call the day fortunate on which his eyes beheld me. As for me, I can tell you that I would not have changed my happiness for any other that could be imagined; for I was sure that Artidoro's worth and good qualities were such that my father would be happy to receive him as a son-in-law. The happy climax you have heard, shepherdesses, was the climax of our love, for only two or three days remained before Artidoro's departure, when fortune, as one who never set bounds to her designs, ordained that a sister of mine, a little younger than I, should return to our village from another where she had been for some days, in the house of an aunt of ours who was ill. And in order that you may see, ladies, what strange and unthought-of chances happen in the world, I would have you know a fact which I think will not fail to cause in you some strange feeling of wonder: it is that this sister of mine I have told you of, who up till then had been away, resembles me so much in face, stature, grace, and spirit (if I have any), that not merely those of our hamlet, but our very parents have often mistaken us, and spoken to the one for the other, so that, not to fall into