She may forestall my story, win on Selby

By a frank confession ?-and the time draws on
For our appointed meeting. The game's desperate
For which I play. A moment's difference
May make it hers or mine. I fly to meet him.

[Exit.

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. Frampton. 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?

By my hopes

Selby.
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. Frampton.

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. Frampton.

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

Mrs. Frampton.

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 Catharine his."

[Aside

Selby.

Thus far the story

[Aside

Wavering between

Tallies with what I hoped.

Mrs. Frampton.

The doubt of doing wrong and losing him; dissuasions not o'er hotly urged,

And my

Whom he had flatter'd with the bridemaid's part-
Selby. I owe my subtle widow, then, for this.
Mrs. Frampton. Briefly, we went to church.

mony

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. Frampton.

[Aside. The cere

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?

Mrs. Frampton. What boots it, if 'twere told?
Selby.

Now, by our loves,

And by my hopes of happier wedlocks, some day
To be accomplish'd, give me his name!

Mrs. Frampton. "Tis no such serious matter. It was-
Huntingdon.

Selby. How have three little syllables pluck'd from me A world of countless hopes!

Evasive widow.

[Aside.

[Aside.

No, no, I meant

Mrs. Frampton. How, sir! I like not this.
Selby.
Nothing but good to thee. That other woman,
How shall I call her but evasive, false,

And treacherous? by the trust I place in thee,
Tell me, and tell me truly, was the name
As you pronounced it?

Mrs. Frampton.

Huntingdon-the name

Which his paternal grandfather assumed,

Together with the estates, of a remote

Kinsman but our high-spirited youth

Selby. Yes

Mrs. Frampton.

Disdaining

For sordid pelf to truck the family honours,

At risk of the lost estates, resumed the old style,
And answer'd only to the name of--

Selby.

Mrs. Frampton. Of Halford

What

Selby. A Huntingdon to Halford changed so soon!
Why, then I see, a witch hath her good spells,
As well as bad, and can by a backward charm
Unruffle the foul storm she has just been raising.

[Aside. He makes the signal
My frank, fair spoken widow ! let this kiss,
Which yet aspires no higher, speak my thanks,
Till I can think on greater.

Enter Lucy and CATHARINE.

Mrs. Frampton.

Interrupted!

Selby. My sister here! and see, where with her comes My serpent gliding in an angel's form,

To taint the new-born Eden of our joys.

Why should we fear them? We'll not stir a foot,

Nor coy it for their pleasures.

Lucy (to Catharine).

[He courts the widow

This your free,

And sweet ingenuous confession, binds me

For ever to you; and it shall go hard,

But it shall fetch you back your husband's heart,
'That now seems blindly straying; or at worst,

In me you have still a sister. Some wives, brother,
Would think it strange to catch their husbands thus
Alone with a trim widow; but your Catharine

Is arm'd, I think, with patience.

Catharine.

I am fortified

With knowledge of self-faults to endure worse wrongs
If they be wrongs, than he can lay upon me;
Even to look on, and see him sue in earnest,

As now I think he does it but in seeming,

To that ill woman.

Selby.

Good words, gentle Kate,

And not a thought irreverent of our widow.

Why, 'twere unmannerly at any time,

But most uncourteous on our wedding-day,

When we should show most hospitable. Some wine

I am for sports. And now I do remember,

The old Egyptians at their banquets placed

[Wine is brough:

A charnel sight of dead men's sculls before them,

With images of cold mortality,

To temper their fierce joys when they grew rampant.
I like the custom well and ere we crown
With freer mirth the day, I shall propose,
In calmest recollection of our spirits,

We drink the solemn "Memory of the dead-"
Mrs. Frampton. Or the supposed dead-
Selby.

(Aside to him. Pledge me, good wife[She fills.

Nay, higher yet, till the brimm'd cup swell o'er.
Catharine. I catch the awful import of your words.
And, though I could accuse you of unkindness,
Yet as your lawful and obedient wife,
While that name lasts (as I perceive it fading,
Nor I much longer may have leave to use it)
I calmly take the office you impose;

And on my kness, imploring their forgiveness,
Whom I in heav'n or earth may have offended,
Exempt from starting tears, and woman's weakness,
I pledge you, sir-The memory of the dead!

[She drinks, kneeling.

Selby. "Tis gently and discreetly said, and like My former loving Kate.

Mrs. Frampton.

Does he relent?

Selby. That ceremony past, we give the day To unabated sport. And in requital

Of certain stories and quaint allegories

Which my rare widow hath been telling to me
To raise my morning mirth, if she will lend
Her patient hearing, I will here recite

A parable; and, the more to suit her taste,
The scene is laid in the East.

Mrs. Frampton.

Some tale to fit his wife.

Catharine.

[Aside

Lucy. The hour of your deliverance is at hand,

If I presage right. Bear up, gentlest sister.

Selby. "The sultan Haroun"-stay-oh, now I have it— "The calif Haroun in his orchards had

A fruit-tree, bearing such delicious fruits,

That he reserved them for his proper gust;

And through the palace it was death proclaim'd

To any one that should purloin the same."

Mrs. Frampton. A heavy penance for so light a fault— Selby. Pray you, be silent, else you put me out.

"A crafty page, that for advantage watch'd,

Detected in the act a brother page

Of his own years, that was his bosom friend;
And henceforth he became that other's lord,
And like a tyrant he demean'd himself,

Laid forced exactions on his fellow's purse;
And when that poor means fail'd, held o'er his head
Threats of impending death in hideous forms;
Till the small culprit on his nightly couch
Dream'd of strange pains, and felt his body writhe
In tortuous pangs around the impaling stake."
Mrs. Frampton. I like not this beginning-
Selby.
"The secret, like a night-hag, rid his sleeps,
And took the youthful pleasures from his days,
And chased the youthful smoothness from his brow,
That from a rose-cheek'd boy he waned and waned
To a pale skeleton of what he was;

Pray you attend,

And would have died but for one lucky chance."
Catharine. Oh!

Mrs. Frampton. Your wife-she faints-some cordialsmell to this.

Selby. Stand off.

My sister best will do that office. Mrs. Frampton. Are all his tempting speeches come to

this?

[Aside.

A warning faintness, sir,
came to where
I am better now,

The sequel shall be brief.

Catharine. But brief or long, I feel my fate hangs on it.

Selby. "One morn the calif, in a covert hid,
Close by an arbour where the two boys talk'd,
(As oft, we read, that Eastern sovereigns
Would play the eavesdropper, to learn the truth,
Imperfectly received from mouths of slaves,)
O'erheard their dialogue; and heard enough
To judge aright the cause, and know his cue.
The following day a cadi was despatched
To summon both before the judgment seat;
The lickerish culprit, almost dead with fear,
And the informing friend, who readily,
Fired with fair promises of large reward
And calif's love, the hateful truth disclosed."

[Aside.