the face, I knew
Was fairness' self, possessed a heart, I judged
Must correspond in folly just as far
Beyond the common,--and a mind to match,--
Not made to puzzle conjurers like me
Who, therein, proved the fool who fronts you, Sir,
And begs leave to cut short the ugly rest!
'_Trust me!_' I said: she trusted. '_Marry me!_'
Or rather, '_We are married: when, the rite?_'
That brought on the collector's next-day qualm
At counting acquisition's cost. There lay
My marvel, there my purse more light by much
Because of its late lie-expenditure:
Ill-judged such moment to make fresh demand--
To cage as well as catch my rarity!
So, I began explaining. At first word
Outbroke the horror. '_Then, my truths were lies!_'
I tell you, such an outbreak, such new strange
All-unsuspected revelation--soul
As supernaturally grand as face
Was fair beyond example--that at once
Either I lost--or, if it please you, found
My senses,--stammered somehow--'_Jest! and now,
Earnest! Forget all else but--heart has loved,
Does love, shall love you ever! take the hand!_'
Not she! no marriage for superb disdain,
Contempt incarnate!"

"Yes, it's different,--
It's only like in being four years since.
I see now!"

"Well, what did disdain do next,
Think you?"

"That's past me: did not marry you!--
That's the main thing I care for, I suppose.
Turned nun, or what?"

"Why, married in a month
Some parson, some smug crop-haired smooth-chinned sort
Of curate-creature, I suspect,--dived down,
Down, deeper still, and came up somewhere else--
I don't know where--I've not tried much to know,--
In short, she's happy: what the clodpoles call
'Countrified' with a vengeance! leads the life
Respectable and all that drives you mad:
Still--where, I don't know, and that's best for both."

"Well, that she did not like you, I conceive.
But why should you hate her, I want to know?"

"My good young friend,--because or her or else
Malicious Providence I have to hate.
For, what I tell you proved the turning-point
Of my whole life and fortune toward success
Or failure. If I drown, I lay the fault
Much on myself who caught at reed not rope,
But more on reed which, with a packthread's pith,
H