6 _Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa_ (Dante’s _Purgatorio_, iii. 51). The allusion is to the souls of those who led useless and idle lives on earth, supporting neither the Divinity by the observance of virtue, nor the spirit of evil by the practice of vice. They are thus cast out both from heaven and hell.--Ed. [Illustration: 049.jpg Tailpiece] [Illustration: 051a.jpg The Grey Friar introducing his Comrade to the Lady and her Daughter] [The Grey Friar introducing his Comrade to the Lady and her Daughter] [Illustration: 051.jpg Page Image] _TALE LVI_. _A pious lady had recourse to a Grey Friar for his advice in providing her daughter with a good husband, for whom she proposed making it so profitable a match that the worthy father, hoping to get the money she intended for her son-in- law, married her daughter to a young comrade of his own. The latter came every evening to sup and lie with his wife, and in the morning returned in the garb of a scholar to his convent. But one day while he was chanting mass, his wife perceived him and pointed him out to her mother; who, however, could not believe that it was he until she had pulled off his coif while he was in bed, and from his tonsure learned the whole truth, and the deceit used by her father confessor_. A French lady, whilst sojourning at Padua, was informed that there was a Grey Friar in the Bishop’s prison there, and finding that every one spoke jestingly about him, she inquired the reason. She was told that this Grey Friar, who was an old man, had been confessor to a very honourable and pious widow lady, mother of only one daughter, whom she loved so dearly as to be at all pains to amass riches for her, and to find her a good husband. Now, seeing that her daughter was grown up, she was unceasingly anxious to find her a husband who might live with them in peace and quiet, a man, that is, of a good conscience, such as she deemed herself to possess. And since she had heard some foolish preacher say that it were better to do evil by the counsel of theologians than to do well through belief in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, she had recourse to her father confessor, a man already old, a doctor of theology and one who was held to lead a holy life by the whole town, for she felt sure that, with his counsel and good prayers, she could not fail to find peace both for herself and for her daughter. After she had earnestly begged him to choose for her daughter such a husband as he knew a woman that loved God and her honour ought to desire, he replied that first of all it was needful to implore the grace of the Holy Spirit with prayer and fasting, and then, God guiding his judgment, he hoped to find what she required.