duty, I now am resolved to take a wife, and turn her out to whosoever will take her in. Let her beauty be her wedding dower, for me and my possessions she esteems not."
Valentine, wondering where all this would end, made answer, "And what would your grace have me to do in all this?"
"Why," said the duke, "the lady I would wish to marry is nice and coy, and does not much esteem my aged eloquence. Besides, the fashion of courtship is much changed since I was young • now I would willingly have you to be my tutor to instruct me how I am to woo."
Valentine gave him a general idea of the modes of courtship then practised by young men, when they wished to win a fair lady's love, such as presents, frequent visits, and the like.
The duke replied to this, that the lady did refuse a present which he sent her, and that she was so strictly kept by her father, that no man might have access to her by day.
"Why, then," said Valentine, "you must visit her by night."
"But at night," said the artful duke, who was now coming to the drift of his discourse, '^ her doors are fast locked."
Valentine then unfortunately proposed, that the duke should get into the lady's chamber at night by means of a ladder of ropes, saying, he would procure him one fitting for that purpose; and in conclusion advised him to conceal this ladder of ropes under such a cloak as that which he now wore. "Lend me your cloak," said the duke, who had feigned this long story on purpose to
