And she brought a basin of water; singing as happily as if it were a sunny noon, and not midnight; she then opened a chest-of-drawers, bringing out a towel of cleanest linen, fragrant with cassia flowers, assisting him in drying his face and hands upon it. Nor did her attention stop here, for a good wife is the dearest joy of a man's heart; but she sat down, and taking Cecchino's head in her lap, combed his hair nicely, freeing it of the dust, and arranging it smoothly around his neck. Then raising his head with both hands, looked smilingly in his face, exulting as a good and virtuous wife should, in a valiant, handsome husband, saying truly from her heart, as she kissed his brow:
"You look to me like an angel." ...
"But this angel," replied Cecchino, "not being as yet divested of its earthly clothing, is as hungry as one of Adam's children even can be."
"Indeed? I did not know you wanted anything. Why did you not say so before? Do not think you take me unprovided. You may find but little in your house, but enough to satisfy your wants."
"What could I do? We have travelled more than fifty miles without stopping. We arrived to-night, and never until we got here did we stop long enough to wet our lips."
"But did you not come with the Duke?"
"Yes, but it is not to be known. He did not stop at the palace. But more of this by-and-by."
"Yes, my dear, by-and-by."
She then set the table in the twinkling of an eye, not on account of the few dishes and little food she put upon it, but because of the great haste she made. The Florentines then had the reputation of being beyond measure frugal and parsimonious, well becoming all those who live honestly; and they still have it. Certainly they once were so; but it is not to be believed they suffered from it; and even by the laws called financial, often renewed, and strenuously enforced, we learn that civil parsimony did not spring up spontaneously, but in consequence of continual laws: we learn also that the statute allowed for dinner two viands alone, the roast and boiled, but the Florentines eluded it very easily by using various kinds of boiled and roasted meats, for the only boiled and roasted one prescribed by the statute. As to dress, Franco Sacchetti has recorded in his very pleasing novel, the great cunning shown by the ladies, by which the judges could never catch them transgressing, or even succeed in applying the laws to them. And when persons of high rank came to Florence, the citizens who entertained them paid the fine and displayed royal magnificence. The records of that time describe the manner Lorenzo the Magnificent entertained Franceschetto Cibo and his Court, when he came to marry his daughter; and this description serves to show how old is the fashion in all those who attempt to destroy the liberty of their country, in studiously observing appearances, in order to sharpen the axe to cut the substance. But then the chests were full of golden florins, the commerce great, industry wonderful, enterprises prodigious; and in those times designs were conceived and executed, that nowadays astonish us only to look at. Unjust then is the reputation that now exists of Florentine avarice; a recent testimony to it, we find in the satires of D'Elci, where he says:
——a te torno, o mia frugal Firenze,
Dove avarizia ha splendide apparenze.