Cordiella was her father's favorite child.

He was, however, jealous of the affections of them all, and one day he called them to him, and asked them for some assurance of their love.
The two eldest responded by making the most extravagant protestations.
They loved their father a thousand times better than their own souls.
They could not express, they said, the ardor and strength of their attachment, and called Heaven and earth to witness that these protestations were sincere.
Cordiella, all this time, stood meekly and silently by, and when her father asked her how it was with her, she replied, "Father, my love toward you is as my duty bids.

What can a father ask, or a daughter promise more?
They who pretend beyond this only flatter." The king, who was old and childish, was much pleased with the manifestation of love offered by Gonilla and Regana, and thought that the honest Cordiella was heartless and cold.

He treated her with greater and greater neglect and finally decided to leave her without any portion whatever, while he divided his kingdom between the other two, having previously married them to princes of high rank.

Cordiella was, however, at last made choice of for a wife by a French prince, who, it seems, knew better than the old king how much more to be relied upon was unpretending and honest truth than empty and extravagant profession.