MANFREDI.
They are happy!
DELL' AQUILA.
Why?
MANFREDI.
They have a new mistress every month,
And each month's mistress no two nights alike.
But jesters can find mistresses, it seems,
As well as poets. There's Torelli swears
Bertuccio has one, and that you know it.
DELL' AQUILA.
I know he has a rare maid close mewed up,
But whether wife or daughter—
MANFREDI.
Tell not me!
A mistress for a thousand! But what of her?
How did you find her out?
DELL' AQUILA.
'T was some weeks since,
Attending vespers in your house's chapel,
At San Costanza, I beheld a maiden
Kneeling before that picture of Our Lady
By Fra Filippo,—oh, so fair, so rapt
In her pure, passionate prayers! I tell you, sirs,
I was nigh going on my knees beside her,
And asking for an interest in her orisons:
Such eyes of softest blue, crowned with such wreaths
Of glossy chestnut hair; a cheek of snow
Flushed tenderly, as when the sunlight strikes
Upon an evening alp; and over all,
A grace of maiden modesty that lay
