recal his orders for killing you; whereas, if you do otherwise, you are certainly gone. This discourse had the effect which the ass designed. The ox was strangely troubled at it, and bellowed out for fear. The merchant, who heard the discourse very attentively, fell into such a fit of laughter, that his wife was surprised at it, and said, Pray, husband, tell me what you laugh at so heartily, that I may laugh with you. Wife, said he, you must content yourself with hearing me laugh. No, replies she, I will know the reason. I cannot give you that satisfaction, answers he, but only that I laugh at what our ass just now said to our ox. The rest is a secret, which I am not allowed to reveal. And what hinders you from revealing the secret, says she? If I tell it you, answers he, it will cost me my life. You only jeer me, cried his wife; what you tell me now cannot be true. If you do not satisfy me presently with what you laugh at, and tell me what the ox and ass said to one another, I swear by Heaven that you and I shall never bed together again. Having spoken thus, she went into the house in a great fret, and, setting herself in a corner, cried there all night. Her husband lay alone, and finding next morning that she continued in the same humour, told her she was a very foolish woman to afflict herself in that manner, the thing was not worth so much; and that it concerned her as little to know the matter, as it concerned him so much to keep it secret; therefore I conjure you to think no more of it. I shall still think so much of it, says she, as never to forbear weeping till you have satisfied my curiosity. But I tell you very seriously, replied he, that it will cost me my life, if I yield to your indiscretion. Let what will happen, says she, I do insist upon it. I perceive, says the merchant, that it is impossible to bring you to reason; and since I foresee that you will occasion your own death by your obstinacy, I will call in your children, that they may see you before you die. Accordingly he called for them, and sent for her father and mother, and other relations. When they were come, and heard the reason of their being called, they did all they could to convince her that she was in the wrong, but to no purpose: she told them she would rather die than yield that point to her husband. Her father and mother spoke to her by herself, and told her that what she desired to know was of no importance to her; but that could gain nothing upon her, either by their authority or entreaties. When her children saw that nothing could prevail to bring her out of that sullen temper, they wept bitterly. The merchant himself was like a man out of his senses, and was almost ready to risk his own life to save that of his wife, whom he loved dearly.