THE BEAUTIFUL MARIA DI LEGNO
(From the Roman Tales)
THERE was once a merchant who was so rich that no king could be richer. He and his wife had one daughter named Maria di Legno, and she was as dear to them as the apple of the eye. Now about the time when Maria was old enough to think of getting married, the merchant’s wife fell ill, and feeling herself about to die she called her husband to her.
“My dear husband,” she said, “I feel that I am near to death and it troubles me greatly to know that Maria is about to lose a mother’s care. She is so beautiful and will be such an heiress that she will have many suitors. Promise me that she shall marry no one but the man whose finger fits this ring.” She then took from her neck a little chain to which a ring was fastened, and laid it in her husband’s hand.
Her husband could refuse her nothing. He gave her his word that it should be as she wished, and very soon afterward his wife died.
It was not long before the suitors began to come from far and near to ask for the hand of Maria di Legno in marriage. Some of them were very rich and powerful, and the merchant would have been very glad to have one of them for a son-in-law, but no man among them could wear the ring. For one it was too small, for another too large, and so they were all obliged to go away again with “no” for the answer. It seemed as though the beautiful Maria would never be married at this rate, and the merchant began to repent him of his promise to his dead wife.
At last came a suitor richer and handsomer than any of the others. He said he was a prince, and he brought with him a long train of attendants, and gifts of great magnificence. The merchant took such a fancy to him that he felt that this was the man whom he would choose out of all the world for his daughter to marry.
Maria, however, was very unhappy, for she could feel nothing but fear and dislike for the stranger.