* * * * *

SCENE.—­A garden.

MR. SELBY.  MRS. FRAMPTON.

Selby. I am not so ill a guesser, Mrs. Frampton,
Not to conjecture, that some passages
In your unfinish’d story, rightly interpreted,
Glanced at my bosom’s peace;
                             You knew my wife?

Mrs. F. Even from her earliest school-days—­What of that?  Or how is she concern’d in my fine riddles, Framed for the hour’s amusement!

Selby.  By my hopes
Of my new interest conceived in you,
And by the honest passion of my heart,
Which not obliquely I to you did hint;
Come from the clouds of misty allegory,
And in plain language let me hear the worst. 
Stand I disgraced, or no?

Mrs. F. Then, by my hopes
Of my new interest conceived in you,
And by the kindling passion in my breast,
Which through my riddles you had almost read,
Adjured so strongly, I will tell you all. 
In her school years, then bordering on fifteen,
Or haply not much past, she loved a youth—­

Selby. My most ingenuous Widow—­

Mrs. F. Met him oft By stealth, where I still of the party was—­

Selby. Prime confidant to all the school, I warrant, And general go-between—­ [Aside.

Mrs. F. One morn he came
In breathless haste.  “The ship was under sail,
Or in few hours would be, that must convey
Him and his destinies to barbarous shores,
Where, should he perish by inglorious hands,
It would be consolation in his death
To have call’d his Katherine his.”

Selby.                          Thus far the story
Tallies with what I hoped.                              [Aside.

Mrs. F. Wavering between
The doubt of doing wrong, and losing him;
And my dissuasions not o’er hotly urged,
Whom he had flatter’d with the bridemaid’s part;—­

Selby. I owe my subtle Widow, then, for this.
          
                                              [Aside.

Mrs. F. Briefly, we went to church.  The ceremony
Scarcely was huddled over, and the ring
Yet cold upon her finger, when they parted—­
He to his ship; and we to school got back,
Scarce miss’d, before the dinner-bell could ring.

Selby. And from that hour—­

Mrs. F. Nor sight, nor news of him, For aught that I could hear, she e’er obtain’d.

Selby. Like to a man that hovers in suspense
Over a letter just received, on which
The black seal hath impress’d its ominous token,
Whether to open it or no, so I
Suspended stand, whether to press my fate
Further, or check ill curiosity,
That tempts me to more loss.—­The name, the name
Of this fine youth?