, of
course; but their paper bullets will do me no harm."

At this moment Beatrice came to the summerhouse, and said, "Against my
will, I have come to tell you that dinner is ready."

"Fair Beatrice, I thank you," said Benedick.

"I took no more pains to come than you take pains to thank me," was the
rejoinder, intended to freeze him.

But it did not freeze him. It warmed him. The meaning he squeezed out of
her rude speech was that she was delighted to come to him.

Hero, who had undertaken the task of melting the heart of Beatrice, took
no trouble to seek an occasion. She simply said to her maid Margaret one
day, "Run into the parlor and whisper to Beatrice that Ursula and I are
talking about her in the orchard."

Having said this, she felt as sure that Beatrice would overhear what was
meant for her ears as if she had made an appointment with her cousin.

In the orchard was a bower, screened from the sun by honeysuckles, and
Beatrice entered it a few minutes after Margaret had gone on her errand.

"But are you sure," asked Ursula, who was one of Hero's attendants,
"that Benedick loves Beatrice so devotedly?"

"So say the Prince and my betrothed," replied Hero, "and they wished me
to tell her, but I said, 'No! Let Benedick get over it.'"

"Why did you say that?"

"Because Beatrice is unbearably proud. Her eyes sparkle with disdain and
scorn. She is too conceited to love. I should not like to see her making
game of poor Benedick's love. I would rather see Benedick waste away
like a covered fire."

"I don't agree with you," said Ursula. "I think your cousin is too
clear-sighted not to see the merits of Benedick." "He is the one man in
Italy, except Claudio," said Hero.

The talkers then left the orchard, and Beatrice, excited and tender,
stepped out of the summer-house, saying to herself, "Poor dear Benedick,
be true to me, and your love shall tame this wild heart of mine."

We now return to the plan of hate.

The night before the day fixed for Claudio's wedding, Don John entered
a room in which Don Pedro and Claudio were conversing, and asked Claudio
if he intended to be married to-morrow.

"You know he does!" said Don Pedro.

"He may know differently," said Don John, "when he has seen what I will
show him if he will follow me."

They followed him into the garden; and they saw a lady leaning out of
Hero's window talking love to Borachio.

Claudio thought the lady was Hero, and said, "I will shame h