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?
[_Aside_.]

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
I long to hear it.
Some tale, to fit his wife.
[_Aside_.]

KATHERINE
Now, comes my TRIAL.

LUCY
The hour of your deliverance is at hand,
If I presage right. Bear up, gentlest sister.

SELBY
"The Sultan Haroun"--Stay--O now I have it--
"The Caliph 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 thenceforth 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
Pray you, attend.
"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;
And would have died, but for one lucky chance."

KATHERINE
Oh!

MRS. FRAMPTON
Your wife--she faints--some cordial--sme