anyone speaking to you so freely; and if it had not been that the shepherdess Licea came up at that moment, I had added such words that he would truly have repented addressing his to me. And the best of it is that I never chose to tell him of the error he was in, but that he believed I was Teolinda, as if he had been speaking with you yourself. At last he went off, calling me thankless, ungrateful, one who showed little return; and from what I can judge from the expression he bore, I assure you, sister, he will not dare speak to you again though he should meet you all alone. What I want to know is who is this shepherd, and what converse has been between you, whence it comes that he dare speak to you with such freedom?" To your great discretion, discreet shepherdesses, I leave it to imagine what my soul would feel on hearing what my sister told me: but at length, dissembling as best I could, I said to her: "You have done me the greatest favour in the world, sister Leonarda," (for so was called the disturber of my peace) "in having by your harsh words rid me of the disgust and turmoil caused me by the importunities you mention of this shepherd. He is a stranger who for eight days has been in our village, whose thoughts are full of arrogance and folly, so great that wherever he sees me he treats me as you have seen, giving himself up to the belief that he has won my good-will; and though I have undeceived him, perhaps with harsher words than you said to him, nevertheless he does not cease to persist in his vain purpose. I assure you, sister, that I wish the new day were here that I might go and tell him that if he does not desist from his vain hope, he may expect the end to it which my words have always indicated to him." And it was indeed true, sweet friends, that I would have given all that might have been asked of me, if it had but been dawn, only that I might go and see my Artidoro, and undeceive him of the error he had fallen into, fearing lest through the bitter and petulant reply my sister had given him he should be disdainful and do something to prejudice our agreement. The long nights of rough December were not more irksome to the lover hoping some happiness from the coming day than was that night distasteful to me, though it was one of the short nights of summer, since I longed for the new light to go and see the light whereby my eyes saw. And so, before the stars wholly lost their brightness, being even in doubt whether it were night or day, constrained by my longing, on the pretext of going to pasture my sheep, I went forth from the village, and hurrying the flock more than usual to urge it on, reached the spot where at other times I was wont to find Artidoro, which I found deserted and without anything to give me indication of him; whereat my heart throbbed violently within me, for it almost guessed the evil which was in store for it. How often, seeing that I did not find him, did I wish to beat the air with my