THE GOAT-FACE.
All the ill deeds that a man commits have some colour of excuse,—either contempt which provokes, necessity which compels, love which blinds, or anger which breaks the neck. But ingratitude is a thing that has no excuse, true or false, upon which it can fix; and it is therefore the worst of vices, since it dries up the fountain of compassion, extinguishes the fire of love, closes the road to benefits, and causes vexation and repentance to spring up in the heart of the ungrateful person; as you will see in the story which I am going to relate.
A peasant had twelve daughters, not one of whom was a head taller than the next; for every year their mother, good Mistress Ceccuzza, presented him with a little girl; so that the poor man, to support his family decently, went every morning as a day-labourer and dug hard the whole day long. Enough, with the little his labour produced, he kept his flock of little ones from dying of hunger.
He happened one day to be digging at the foot of a mountain, the spy of the other mountains that thrust
