A MIDNIGHT FANTASY By Thomas Bailey Aldrich Boston And New York Houghton Mifflin Company Copyright, 1873, 1885, and 1901 I. It was close upon eleven o'clock when I stepped out of the rearvestibule of the Boston Theatre, and, passing through the narrow courtthat leads to West Street, struck across the Common diagonally. Indeed, as I set foot on the Tremont Street mall, I heard the Old South drowsilysounding the hour. It was a tranquil June night, with no moon, but clusters of sensitivestars that seemed to shiver with cold as the wind swept by them;for perhaps there was a swift current of air up there in the zenith. However, not a leaf stirred on the Common; the foliage hung black andmassive, as if cut in bronze; even the gaslights appeared to be infectedby the prevailing calm, burning steadily behind their glass screensand turning the neighboring leaves into the tenderest emerald. Here andthere, in the sombre row of houses stretching along Beacon Street, anilluminated window gilded a few square feet of darkness; and now andthen a footfall sounded on a distant pavement. The pulse of the citythrobbed languidly. The lights far and near, the fantastic shadows of the elms and maples, the gathering dew, the elusive odor of new grass, and that peculiar hushwhich belongs only to midnight--as if Time had paused in his flight andwere holding his breath--gave to the place, so familiar to me by day, anair of indescribable strangeness and remoteness. The vast, deserted parkhad lost all its wonted outlines; I walked doubtfully on the flagstoneswhich I had many a time helped to wear smooth; I seemed to be wanderingin some lonely unknown garden across the seas--in that old garden inVerona where Shakespeare's ill-starred lovers met and parted. The whitegranite façade over yonder--the Somerset Club--might well have beenthe house of Capulet: there was the clambering vine reaching up like apliant silken ladder; there, near by, was the low-hung balcony, wantingonly the slight girlish figure--immortal shape of fire and dew!--to makethe illusion perfect. I do not know what suggested it; perhaps it was something in the playI had just witnessed--it is not always easy to put one's finger on theinvisible electric thread that runs from thought to thought--but asI sauntered on I fell to thinking of the ill-assorted marriages I hadknown. Suddenly there hurried along the gravelled path which crossedmine obliquely a half-indistinguishable throng of pathetic men andwomen: two by two they filed before me, each becoming startlinglydistinct for an instant as they passed--some with tears, some withhollow smiles, and some with firm-set lips, bearing their fetters withthem. There was little Alice chained to old Bowlsby; there was Lucille, "a daughter of the gods, divinely tall, " linked forever to the dwarfPerrywinkle; there was my friend Porphyro, the poet, with his delicategenius shrivelled in the glare of the youngest Miss Lucifer's eyes;there they were, Beauty and the Beast, Pride and Humility, Bluebeard andFatima, Prose and Poetry, Riches and Poverty, Youth and Crabbed Age--Oh, sorrowful procession! All so wretched, when perhaps all might havebeen so happy if they had only paired differently! I halted a moment tolet the weird shapes drift by. As the last of the train melted into thedarkness, my vagabond fancy went wandering back to the theatre and theplay I had seen--Romeo and Juliet. Taking a lighter tint, but still ofthe same sober color, my reflections continued. What a different kind of woman Juliet would have been if she had notfallen in love with Romeo, but had bestowed her affection on somethoughtful and stately signior--on one of the Delia Scalas, for example!What Juliet needed was a firm and gentle hand to tame her high spiritwithout breaking a pinion. She was a little too--vivacious, you mightsay--"gushing" would perhaps be the word if you were speaking of amodern maiden with so exuberant a disposition as Juliet's. She wastoo romantic, too blossomy, too impetuous, too wilful; old Capulet hadbrought her up injudiciously, and Lady Capulet was a nonentity. Yet inspite of faults of training and some slight inherent flaws of character, Juliet was a superb creature; there was a fascinating dash in herfrankness; her modesty and daring were as happy rhymes as ever touchedlips in a love-poem. But her impulses required curbing; her heart madetoo many beats to the minute. It was an evil destiny that flung in thepath of so rich and passionate a nature a fire-brand like Romeo. Even ifno family feud had existed, the match would not have been a wise one. Asit was, the well-known result was inevitable. What could come of it butclandestine meetings, secret marriage, flight, despair, poison, andthe Tomb of the Capulets? I had left the park behind, by this, and hadentered a thoroughfare where the street-lamps were closer together; butthe gloom of the trees seemed still to be overhanging me. The fact is, the tragedy had laid a black finger on my imagination. I wished that theplay had ended a trifle more cheerfully. I wished--possibly because Isee enough tragedy all around me without going to the theatre for it, or possibly it was because the lady who enacted the leading part was aremarkably clean-cut little person, with a golden sweep of eyelashes--Iwished that Juliet could have had a more comfortable time of it. Insteadof a yawning sepulchre, with Romeo and Juliet dying in the middleforeground, and that luckless young Paris stretched out on the left, spitted like a spring-chicken with Montague's rapier, and FriarLaurence, with a dark lantern, groping about under the melancholyyews--in place of all this costly piled-up woe, I would have liked apretty, mediaeval chapel scene, with illuminated stained-glass windows, and trim acolytes holding lighted candles, and the great green curtainslowly descending to the first few bars of the Wedding March ofMendelssohn. Of course Shakespeare was true to the life in making them all diemiserably. Besides, it was so they died in the novel of Matteo Bandello, from which the poet indirectly took his plot. Under the circumstancesno other climax was practicable; and yet it was sad business. There wereMercutio, and Tybalt, and Paris, and Juliet, and Romeo, come to a bloodyend in the bloom of their youth and strength and beauty. The ghosts of these five murdered persons seemed to be on my track as Ihurried down Revere Street to West Cedar. I fancied them hovering aroundthe corner opposite the small drug-store, where a meagre apothecary wasin the act of shutting up the fan-like jets of gas in his shop-window. "No, Master Booth, " I muttered in the imagined teeth of the tragedian, throwing an involuntary glance over my shoulder, "you 'll not catch meassisting at any more of your Shakespearean revivals. I would rather eata pair of Welsh rarebits or a segment of mince-pie at midnight than sitthrough the finest tragedy that was ever writ. " As I said this I halted at the door of a house in Charles Place, and wasfumbling for my latch-key, when a most absurd idea came into my head. Ilet the key slip back into my pocket, and strode down Charles Place intoCambridge Street, and across the long bridge, and then swiftly forward. I remember, vaguely, that I paused for a moment on the draw of thebridge, to look at the semi-circular fringe of lights duplicating itselfin the smooth Charles in the rear of Beacon Street--as lovely a bit ofVenetian effect as you will get outside of Venice; I remember meeting, farther on, near a stiff wooden church in Cambridgeport, a lumberingcovered wagon, evidently from Brighton and bound for Quincy Market; andstill farther on, somewhere in the vicinity of Harvard Square and thecollege buildings, I recollect catching a glimpse of a policeman, who, probably observing something suspicious in my demeanor, discreetlywalked off in an opposite direction. I recall these triflesindistinctly, for during this preposterous excursion I was at no timesharply conscious of my surroundings; the material world presenteditself to me as if through a piece of stained glass. It was only whenI had reached a neighborhood where the houses were few and the gardensmany, a neighborhood where the closely-knitted town began to fringeout into country, that I came to the end of my dream. And what was thedream? The slightest of tissues, madam; a gossamer, a web of shadows, a thing woven out of starlight. Looking at it by day, I find that itscolors are pallid, and its threaded diamonds--they were merely theperishable dews of that June night--have evaporated in the sunshine; butsuch as it is you shall have it. II. The young prince Hamlet was not happy at Elsinore. It was not becausehe missed the gay student-life of Wittenberg, and that the littleDanish court was intolerably dull. It was not because the didactic lordchamberlain bored him with long speeches, or that the lord chamberlain'sdaughter was become a shade wearisome. Hamlet had more serious cues forunhappiness. He had been summoned suddenly from Wittenberg to attend hisfather's funeral; close upon this, and while his grief was green, hismother had married with his uncle Claudius, whom Hamlet had never liked. The indecorous haste of these nuptials--they took place within twomonths after the king's death, the funeral-baked meats, as Hamletcursorily remarked, furnishing forth the marriage-tables--struck theyoung prince aghast. He had loved the queen his mother, and had nearlyidolized the late king; but now he forgot to lament the death of the onein contemplating the life of the other. The billing and cooing of thenewly-married couple filled him with horror. Anger, shame, pity, anddespair seized upon him by turns. He fell into a forlorn condition, forsaking his books, eating little save of the chameleon's dish, theair, drinking deep of Rhenish, letting his long, black locks go unkempt, and neglecting his dress--he who had hitherto been "the glass of fashionand the mould of form, " as Ophelia had prettily said of him. Often for half the night he would wander along the ramparts of thecastle, at the imminent risk of tumbling off, gazing seaward andmuttering strangely to himself, and evolving frightful spectres outof the shadows cast by the turrets. Sometimes he lapsed into a gentlemelancholy; but not seldom his mood was ferocious, and at such times theconversational Polonius, with a discretion that did him credit, steeredclear of my lord Hamlet. He turned no more graceful compliments for Ophelia. The thought ofmarrying her, if he had ever seriously thought of it, was gone now. He rather ruthlessly advised her to go into a nunnery. His motherhad sickened him of women. It was of her he spoke the notable words, "Frailty, thy name is woman!" which, some time afterwards, an amiableFrench gentleman had neatly engraved on the head-stone of his wife, whohad long been an invalid. Even the king and queen did not escape Hamletin his distempered moments. Passing his mother in a corridor or on astaircase of the palace, he would suddenly plant a verbal dagger inher heart; and frequently, in full court, he would deal the king sucha cutting reply as caused him to blanch, and gnaw his lip. If thespectacle of Gertrude and Claudius was hateful to Hamlet, the presenceof Hamlet, on the other hand, was scarcely a comfort to the royal lovers. At first his uncle had called him "our chiefest courtier, cousin, andour son, " trying to smooth over matters; but Hamlet would have none ofit. Therefore, one day, when the young prince abruptly announcedhis intention to go abroad, neither the king nor the queen placedimpediments in his way, though, some months previously, they had bothprotested strongly against his returning to Wittenberg. The small-fry of the court knew nothing of Prince Hamlet's determinationuntil he had sailed from Elsinore; their knowledge then was confined tothe fact of his departure. It was only to Horatio, his fellow-studentand friend, that Hamlet confided the real cause of his self-imposedexile, though perhaps Ophelia half suspected it. Polonius had dropped an early hint to his daughter concerning Hamlet'sintent. She knew that everything was over between them, and the nightbefore he embarked Ophelia placed in the prince's hand the few lettersand trinkets he had given her, repeating, as she did so, a certaindistich which somehow haunted Hamlet's memory for several days after hewas on shipboard: "Take these again; for to the noble mind Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. " "These could never have waxed poor, " said Hamlet softly to himself, ashe leaned over the taffrail, the third day out, spreading the trinketsin his palm, "being originally of but little worth. I fancy that thatallusion to 'rich gifts' was a trifle malicious on the part of the fairOphelia;" and he quietly dropped them into the sea. It was as a Danish gentleman voyaging for pleasure, and for mentalprofit also, if that should happen, that Hamlet set forth on histravels. Settled destination he had none, his sole plan being to getclear of Denmark as speedily as possible, and then to drift whither hisfancy took him. His fancy naturally took him southward, as it wouldhave taken him northward if he had been a Southron. Many a time whileclimbing the bleak crags around Elsinore he had thought of the land ofthe citron and the palm; lying on his couch at night, and listening tothe wind as it howled along the machicolated battlements of the castle, his dreams had turned from the cold, blonde ladies of his father's courtto the warmer beauties that ripen under sunny skies. He was free now totest the visions of his boyhood. So it chanced, after various wanderings, all tending imperceptibly inone direction, that Hamlet bent his steps towards Italy. In those rude days one did not accomplish a long journey without havingwonderful adventures befall, or encountering divers perils by the way. It was a period when a stout blade on the thigh was a most excellenttravelling companion. Hamlet, though of a philosophical complexion, wasnot slower than another man to scent an affront; he excelled at featsof arms, and no doubt his skill, caught of the old fencing-master atElsinore, stood him in good stead more than once when his wit would nothave saved him. Certainly, he had hair-breadth escapes while toilingthrough the wilds of Prussia and Bavaria and Switzerland. At all events, he counted himself fortunate the night he arrived at Verona with nothingmore serious than a two-inch scratch on his sword arm. There he lodged himself, as became a gentleman of fortune, in a suite ofchambers in a comfortable palace overlooking the swift-flowing Adige--ariotous yellow stream that cut the town into two parts, and wasspanned here and there by rough-hewn stone bridges, which it sometimessportively washed away. It was a brave old town that had stood siegesand plagues, and was full of mouldy, picturesque buildings and a gayetythat has since grown somewhat mouldy. A goodly place to rest in for thewayworn pilgrim! He dimly recollected that he had letters to one or twoillustrious families; but he cared not to deliver them at once. It waspleasant to stroll about the city, unknown. There were sights tosee: the Roman amphitheatre, and the churches with their sculpturedsarcophagi and saintly relics--interesting joints and saddles ofmartyrs, and enough fragments of the true cross to build a ship. Thelife in the _piazze_ and on the streets, the crowds in the shops, thepageants, the lights, the stir, the color, all mightily took the eyeof the young Dane. He was in a mood to be amused. Everything divertedhim--the faint pulsing of a guitar-string in an adjacent garden atmidnight, or the sharp clash of gleaming sword blades under his window, when the Montecchi and the Cappelletti chanced to encounter each otherin the narrow footway. Meanwhile, Hamlet brushed up his Italian. He was well versed in theliterature of the language, particularly in its dramatic literature, andhad long meditated penning a gloss to "The Murther of Gonzago, " a playwhich Hamlet held in deservedly high estimation. He made acquaintances, too. In the same palace where he sojournedlived a very valiant soldier and wit, a kinsman to Prince Escalus, oneMercutio by name, with whom Hamlet exchanged civilities on the staircaseat first, and then fell into companionship. A number of Verona's noble youths, poets and light-heartedmen-about-town, frequented Mercutio's chambers, and with these Hamletsoon became on terms. Among the rest were an agreeable gentleman, with hazel eyes, namedBenvolio, and a gallant young fellow called Romeo, whom Mercutiobantered pitilessly and loved heartily. This Romeo, who belonged to oneof the first families, was a very susceptible spark, which the slightestbreath of a pretty woman was sufficient to blow into flame. To changethe metaphor, he fell from one love affair into another as easily andlogically as a ripe pomegranate drops from a bough. He was generallyunlucky in these matters, curiously enough, for he was a handsome youthin his saffron satin doublet slashed with black, and his jaunty velvetbonnet with its trailing plume of ostrich feather. At the time of Hamlet's coming to Verona, Romeo was in a great despairof love in consequence of an unrequited passion for a certain lady ofthe city, between whose family and his own a deadly feud had existed forcenturies. Somebody had stepped on somebody else's lap-dog in the farages, and the two families had been slashing and hacking at each otherever since. It appeared that Romeo had scaled a garden wall, one night, and broken upon the meditations of his inamorata, who, as chance wouldhave it, was sitting on her balcony enjoying the moonrise. No lady couldbe insensible to such devotion, for it would have been death to Romeoif any of her kinsmen had found him in that particular locality. Sometender phrases passed between them, perhaps; but the lady was flurried, taken unawares, and afterwards, it seemed, altered her mind, and wouldhave no further commerce with the Montague. This business furnishedMercutio's quiver with innumerable sly shafts, which Romeo received forthe most part in good humor. With these three gentlemen--Mercutio, Benvolio, and Romeo--Hamlet sawlife in Verona, as young men will see life wherever they happen to be. Many a time the nightingale ceased singing and the lark began beforethey were abed; but perhaps it is not wise to inquire too closely intothis. A month had slipped away since Hamlet's arrival; the hyacinthswere opening in the gardens, and it was spring. One morning, as he and Mercutio were lounging arm in arm on a bridgenear their lodgings, they met a knave in livery puzzling over aparchment which he was plainly unable to decipher. "Read it aloud, friend!" cried Mercutio, who always had a word to throwaway. "I would I could read it at all. I pray, sir, can you read?" "With ease--if it is not my tailor's score;" and Mercutio took theparchment, which ran as follows:-- "_Signior Martino, and his wife and daughters; County Ansdmo, and hisbeauteous sisters; the lady widow Vitrumo; Signior Placentio, and hislovely nieces; Mercutio, and his brother Valentine; mine uncle Capulet, his wife and daughters; my fair niece Rosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio, and his cousin Tybalt; Lucio, and the lively Helena_. " "A very select company, with the exception of that rogue Mercutio, " saidthe soldier, laughing. "What does it mean?" "My master, the Signior Capulet, gives a ball and supper to-night; thesethe guests; I am his man Peter, and if you be not one of the house ofMontague, I pray come and crush a cup of wine with us. Rest you merry;"and the knave, having got his billet deciphered for him, made off. "One must needs go, being asked by both man and master; but since I amasked doubly, I 'll not go singly; I 'll bring you with me, Hamlet. Itis a masquerade; I have had wind of it. The flower of the city will bethere--all the high-bosomed roses and low-necked lilies. " Hamlet had seen nothing of society in Verona, properly speaking, anddid not require much urging to assent to Mercutio's proposal, far fromforeseeing that so slight a freak would have a fateful sequence. It was late in the night when they presented themselves, in mask anddomino, at the Capulet mansion. The music was at its sweetest and thetorches were at their brightest, as the pair entered the dancing-hall. They had scarcely crossed the threshold when Hamlet's eyes rested upona lady clad in a white silk robe, who held to her features, as she movedthrough the figure of the dance, a white satin mask, on each side ofwhich was disclosed so much of the rosy oval of her face as made onelong to look upon the rest. The ornaments this lady wore were pearls;her fan and slippers, like the robe and mask, were white--nothing butwhite. Her eyes shone almost black contrasted with the braids of warmgold hair that glistened through a misty veil of Venetian stuff, whichfloated about her from time to time and enveloped her, as the blossomsdo a tree. Hamlet could think of nothing but the almond-tree that stoodin full bloom in the little _cortile_ near his lodging. She seemed tohim the incarnation of that exquisite spring-time which had touchedand awakened all the leaves and buds in the sleepy old gardens aroundVerona. "Mercutio! who is that lady?" "The daughter of old Capulet, by her stature. " "And he that dances with her?" "Paris, a kinsman to Can Grande della Scala. " "Her lover?" "One of them. " "She has others?" "Enough to make a squadron; only the blind and aged are exempt. " Here the music ceased and the dancers dispersed. Hamlet followed thelady with his eyes, and, seeing her left alone a moment, approached her. She received him graciously, as a mask receives a mask, and the twofell to talking, as people do who--have nothing to say to each other andpossess the art of saying it. Presently something in his voice struckon her ear, a new note, an intonation sweet and strange, that made hercurious. Who was it? It could not be Valentine, nor Anselmo; he was tootall for Signior Placentio, not stout enough for Lucio; it was not hercousin Tybalt. Could it be that rash Montague who--Would he dare? Here, on the very points of their swords? The stream of maskers ebbed andflowed and surged around them, and the music began again, and Julietlistened and listened. "Who are you, sir, " she cried, at last, "that speak our tongue withfeigned accent?" "A stranger; an idler in Verona, though not a gay one--a blackbutterfly. " "Our Italian sun will gild your wings for you. Black edged with giltgoes gay. " "I am already not so sad-colored as I was. " "I would fain see your face, sir; if it match your voice, it needs mustbe a kindly one. " "I would we could change faces. " "So we shall at supper!" "And hearts, too?" "Nay, I would not give a merry heart for a sorrowful one; but I willquit my mask, and you yours; yet, " and she spoke under her breath, "ifyou are, as I think, a gentleman of Verona--a Montague--do not unmask. " "I am not of Verona, lady; no one knows me here;" and Hamlet threw backthe hood of his domino. Juliet held her mask aside for a moment, and thetwo stood looking into each other's eyes. "Lady, we have in faith changed faces, at least as I shall carry yoursforever in my memory. " "And I yours, sir, " said Juliet, softly, "wishing it looked not so paleand melancholy. " "Hamlet, " whispered Mercutio, plucking at his friend's skirt, "thefellow there, talking with old Capulet--his wife's nephew, Tybalt, a quarrelsome dog--suspects we are Montagues. Let us get out of thispeaceably, like soldiers who are too much gentlemen to cause a brawlunder a host's roof. " With this Mercutio pushed Hamlet to the door, where they were joined byBenvolio. Juliet, with her eyes fixed upon the retreating maskers, stretched outher hand and grasped the arm of an ancient serving-woman who happened tobe passing. "Quick, good Nurse! go ask his name of yonder gentleman. Nay, not theone in green, dear! but he that hath the black domino and purple mask. What, did I touch your poor rheumatic arm? Ah, go now, sweet Nurse!" As the Nurse hobbled off querulously on her errand, Juliet murmured toherself an old rhyme she knew:-- "If he be married, My grave is like to be my wedding bed!" When Hamlet got back to his own chambers he sat on the edge of his couchin a brown study. The silvery moonlight, struggling through the swayingbranches of a tree outside the window, drifted doubtfully into the room, and made a parody of that fleecy veil which erewhile had floated aboutthe lissome form of the lovely Capulet. That he loved her, and musttell her that he loved her, was a foregone conclusion; but how shouldhe contrive to see Juliet again? No one knew him in Verona; he hadcarefully preserved his incognito; even Mercutio regarded him as simplya young gentleman from Denmark, taking his ease in a foreign city. Presented, by Mercutio, as a rich Danish tourist, the Capulets wouldreceive him courteously, of course; as a visitor, but not as a suitor. It was in another character that he must be presented--his own. He was pondering what steps he could take to establish his identity, when he remembered the two or three letters which he had stuffedinto his wallet on quitting Elsi-nore. He lighted a taper, and beganexamining the papers. Among them were the half dozen billet-doux whichOphelia had returned to him the night before his departure. They were, neatly tied together by a length of black ribbon, to which was attacheda sprig of rosemary. "That was just like Ophelia!" muttered the young man, tossing thepackage into the wallet again; "she was always having cheerful ideaslike that. " How long ago seemed the night she had handed him these love-letters, inher demure little way! How misty and remote seemed everything connectedwith the old life at Elsinore! His father's death, his mother'smarriage, his anguish and isolation--they were like things that hadbefallen somebody else. There was something incredible, too, in hispresent situation. Was he dreaming? Was he really in Italy, and in love? He hastily bent forward and picked up a square folded paper lying halfconcealed under the others. "How could I have forgotten it!" he exclaimed. It was a missive addressed, in Horatio's angular hand, to the SigniorCapulet of Verona, containing a few lines of introduction from Horatio, whose father had dealings with some of the rich Lombardy merchants andknew many of the leading families in the city. With this and severalepistles, preserved by chance, written to him by Queen Gertrude whilehe was at the university, Hamlet saw that he would have no difficulty inproving to the Capulets that he was the Prince of Denmark. At an unseemly hour the next morning Mercutio was roused from hisslumbers by Hamlet, who counted every minute a hundred years until hesaw Juliet. Mercutio did not take this interruption too patiently, forthe honest humorist was very serious as a sleeper; but his equilibriumwas quickly restored by Hamlet's revelation. The friends were long closeted together, and at the proper, ceremonioushour for visitors they repaired to the house of Capulet, who did nothide his sense of the honor done him by the prince. With scarcely anyprelude Hamlet unfolded the motive of his visit, and was listened towith rapt attention by old Capulet, who inwardly blessed his stars thathe had not given his daughter's hand to the County Paris, as he was onthe point of doing. The ladies were not visible on this occasion; thefatigues of the ball overnight, etc. ; but that same evening Hamletwas accorded an interview with Juliet and Lady Capulet, and a few dayssubsequently all Verona was talking of nothing but the new engagement. The destructive Tybalt scowled at first, and twirled his fiercemustache, and young Paris took to writing dejected poetry; but they bothsoon recovered their serenity, seeing that nobody minded them, and wenttogether arm in arm to pay their respects to Hamlet. A new life began now for Hamlet---he shed his inky cloak, and came outin a doublet of insolent splendor, looking like a dagger-handle newlygilt. With his funereal gear he appeared to have thrown off somethingof his sepulchral gloom. It was impossible to be gloomy with Juliet, in whom each day developed some sunny charm un-guessed before. Herfreshness and coquettish candor were constant surprises. She had hadmany lovers, and she confessed them to Hamlet in the prettiest way. "Perhaps, my dear, " she said to him one evening, with an ineffablesmile, "I might have liked young Romeo very well, but the family were soopposed to it from the very first. And then he was so--so demonstrative, don't you know?" Hamlet had known of Romeo's futile passion, but he had not been awareuntil then that his betrothed was the heroine of the balcony adventure. On leaving Juliet he-went to look up the Montague; not for the purposeof crossing rapiers with him, as another man might have done, but tocompliment him on his unexceptionable taste in admiring so rare a lady. But Romeo had disappeared in a most unaccountable manner, and his familywere in great tribulation concerning him. It was thought that perhapsthe unrelenting Rosaline (who had been Juliet's frigid predecessor) hadrelented, and Montague's man Abram was dispatched to seek Romeo at herresidence; but the Lady Rosaline, who was embroidering on her piazza, placidly denied all knowledge of him. It was then feared that he hadfallen in one of the customary encounters; but there had been no fight, and nobody had been killed on either side for nearly twelve hours. Nevertheless, his exit had the appearance of being final. When Hamletquestioned Mercutio, the honest soldier laughed and stroked his blondemustache. "The boy has gone off in a heat, I don't know where--to the icy ends ofthe earth, I believe, to cool himself. " Hamlet regretted that Romeo should have had any feeling in the matter;but regret was a bitter weed that did not thrive well in the atmospherein which the fortunate lover was moving. He saw Juliet every day, andthere was not a fleck upon his happiness, unless it was the garrulousNurse, against whom Hamlet had taken a singular prejudice. He consideredher a tiresome old person, not too decent in her discourse at times, andadvised Juliet to get rid of her; but the ancient serving-woman had beenin the family for years, and it was not quite expedient to discharge herat that late day. With the subtile penetration of old age the Nurse instantly detectedHamlet's dislike, and returned it heartily. "Ah, ladybird, " she cried one night, "ah, well-a-day! you know not howto choose a man. An I could choose for you, Jule! By God's lady, there'sSignior Mercutio, a brave gentleman, a merry gentleman, and a virtuous, I warrant ye, whose little finger-joint is worth all the body of thisblackbird prince, dropping down from Lord knows where to fly off withthe sweetest bit of flesh in Verona. Marry, come up!" But this was only a ripple on the stream that flowed so smoothly. Nowand then, indeed, Hamlet felt called upon playfully to chide Juliet forher extravagance of language, as when, for instance, she prayed thatwhen he died he might be cut out in little stars to deck the face ofnight. Hamlet objected, under any circumstances, to being cut outin little stars for any illuminating purposes whatsoever. Once shesuggested to her lover that he should come to the garden after thefamily retired, and she would speak with him a moment from the balcony. Now, as there was no obstacle to their seeing each other whenever theypleased, and as Hamlet was of a nice sense of honor, and since hisengagement a most exquisite practicer of propriety, he did not encourageJuliet in her thoughtlessness. "What!" he cried, lifting his finger at her reprovingly, "romanticagain!" This was their nearest approach to a lovers' quarrel. The next dayHamlet brought her, as peace-offering, a slender gold flask curiouslywrought in niello, which he had had filled with a costly odor at anapothecary's as he came along. "I never saw so lean a thing as that same culler of simples, " saidHamlet, laughing; "a matter of ribs and shanks, a mere skeleton paintedblack. It is a rare essence, though. He told me its barbaric botanicalname, but it escapes me. " "That which we call a rose, " said Juliet, holding the perfumery to hernostrils and inclining herself prettily towards him, "would smell assweet by any other name. " O Youth and Love! O fortunate Time! There was a banquet almost every night at the Capulets', and theMontagues, up the street, kept their blinds drawn down, and LadyMontague, who had four marriageable, tawny daughters on her hands, waslivid with envy at her neighbor's success. She would rather have had twoor three Montagues prodded through the body than that the prince shouldhave gone to the rival house. Happy Prince! If Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and Laertes, and the rest of the dismalpeople at Elsinore, could have seen him now, they would not have knownhim. Where were his wan looks and biting speeches? His eyes were nolonger filled with mournful speculation. He went in glad apparel, andtook the sunshine as his natural inheritance. If he ever fell intomoodiness--it was partly constitutional with him--the shadow fled awayat the first approach of that "loveliest weight on lightest foot. " Thesweet Veronese had nestled in his empty heart, and filled it with music. The ghosts and visions that used to haunt him were laid forever byJuliet's magic. Happy Juliet! Her beauty had taken a new gloss. The bud bad grown into a flower, redeeming the promises of the bud. If her heart beat less wildly, itthrobbed more strongly. If she had given Hamlet of her superabundance ofspirits, he had given her of his wisdom and discretion. She had alwaysbeen a great favorite in society; but Verona thought her ravishing now. The mantua-makers cut their dresses by her patterns, and when she woreturquoise, garnets went ont of style. Instead of the groans and tears, and all those distressing events which might possibly have happened ifJuliet had persisted in loving Romeo--listen to her laugh and behold hermerry eyes! Every morning either Peter or Gregory might have been seen going upHamlet's staircase with a note from Juliet--she had ceased to send theNurse on discovering her lover's antipathy to that person--and someminutes later either Gregory or Peter might have been observed comingdown the staircase with a missive from Hamlet. Juliet had detected hisgift for verse, and insisted, rather capriciously, on having all hisreplies in that shape. Hamlet humored her, though he was often hard putto it; for the Muse is a coy immortal, and will not always come when sheis wanted. Sometimes he was forced to fall back upon previous efforts, as when he translated these lines into very choice Italian:-- "Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt Truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love. " To be sure, he had originally composed this quatrain for Ophelia; butwhat would you have? He had scarcely meant it then; he meant it now;besides, a felicitous rhyme never goes out of fashion. It always fits. While transcribing the verse his thoughts naturally reverted to Ophelia, for the little poesy was full of a faint scent of the past, like apressed flower. His conscience did not prick him at all. How fortunatefor him and for her that matters had gone no further between them?Predisposed to melancholy, and inheriting a not very strong mind fromher father, Ophelia was a lady who needed cheering up, if ever poor ladydid. He, Hamlet, was the last man on the globe with whom she should havehad any tender affiliation. If they had wed, they would have caughteach other's despondency, and died, like a pair of sick ravens, within afortnight. What had become of her? Had she gone into a nunnery? He wouldmake her abbess, if he ever returned to Elsinore. After a month or two of courtship, there being no earthly reason toprolong it, Hamlet and Juliet were privately married in the FranciscanChapel, Friar Laurence officiating; but there was a grand banquetthat night at the Capulets', to which all Verona went. At Hamlet'sintercession, the Montagues were courteously asked to this festival. To the amazement of every one the Montagues accepted the invitation andcame, and were treated royally, and the long, lamentable feud--it wouldhave sorely puzzled either house to explain what it was all about--wasat an end. The adherents of the Capulets and the Montagues wereforbidden on the spot to bite any more thumbs at each other. "It will detract from the general gayety of the town, " Mercutioremarked. "Signior Tybalt, my friend, I shall never have the pleasure ofrunning you through the diaphragm; a cup of wine with you!" The guests were still at supper in the great pavilion erected inthe garden, which was as light as day with the glare of innumerableflambeaux set among the shrubbery. Hamlet and Juliet, with severalothers, had withdrawn from the tables, and were standing in the doorwayof the pavilion, when Hamlet's glance fell upon the familiar form of ayoung man who stood with one foot on the lower step, holding his plumedbonnet in his hand. His hose and doublet were travel-worn, but hishonest face was as fresh as daybreak. "What! Horatio?" "The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever. " "Sir, my good friend: I 'll change that name with you. What brings youto Verona?" "I fetch you news, my lord. " "Good news? Then the king is dead. " "The king lives, but Ophelia is no more. " "Ophelia dead!" "Not so, my lord; she 's married. " "I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student. " "As I do live, my honored lord, 't is true. " "Married, say you?" "Married to him that sent me hither--a gentleman of winning ways anda most choice conceit, the scion of a noble house here in Verona--oneRomeo. " The oddest little expression flitted over Juliet's face. There wasnever woman yet, even on her bridal day, could forgive a jilted lovermarrying. "Ophelia wed!" murmured the bridegroom. "Do you know the lady, dear?" "Excellent well, " replied Hamlet, turning to Juliet; "a most estimableyoung person, the daughter of my father's chamberlain. She is rathergiven to singing ballads of an elegiac nature, " added the prince, reflectingly, "but our madcap Romeo will cure her of that. Methinks Isee them now"-- "Oh, where, my lord?" "In my mind's eye, Horatio, surrounded by their little ones--nobleyouths and graceful maidens, in whom the impetuosity of the fiery Romeois tempered by the pensiveness of the fair Ophelia. I shall take it mostunkindly of them, love, " toying with Juliet's fingers, "if they do notname their first boy Hamlet. " It was just as my lord Hamlet finished speaking that the last horse-carfor Boston--providentially belated between Water-town and MountAuburn--swept round the curve of the track on which I was walking. Theamber glow of the car-lantern lighted up my figure in the gloom, thedriver gave a quick turn on the brake, and the conductor, makinga sudden dexterous clutch at the strap over his head, sounded thedeath-knell of my fantasy as I stepped upon the rear platform.