"The dawn had already, under the near approach of the sun, from rosy become golden: when on Sunday, the Queen[3] arising and arousing all her company, and the chamberlain--having long before sent in advance to the locality where they were to go, enough of the articles required so that he might prepare what was necessary--seeing the Queen on the way, quickly loading all other things as if it were the moving of the camp, went off with the baggage, leaving the servants with the Ladies and the Gentlemen. The Queen, then, with slow steps, accompanied and followed by her Ladies and the three Gentlemen, with the escort of perhaps twenty nightingales and other birds, by a little path not too frequented, but full of green plants and flowers which by the rising sun began to open, took the road towards the west; and gossiping, laughing, and exchanging witticisms with her brigade, arrived before having gone two thousand steps at a most beautiful and rich palace, which, somewhat raised above the plain, was posted on a hill." [Footnote 3: Each day a Queen or King was chosen to rule over the doings of the company and determine all questions.] As the description of the surroundings of the villa into which the gay assembly now entered is one of the most vivid and one of the gayest pieces of description in the brilliant counterfoil which the author has contrived, to set off the gloom of the city, it is worth giving entire; being as well a noble example of the prose of the 'Decameron':--