o with me? shall I dance
attendance on fair ladies when I have told out near fifty years of life? I
hope not.'

Lady Pembroke laughed.

'There is no fear, methinks, for you or Philip; but, after all, it is the
heart which keeps us really young, despite age, yes, and infirmity. Philip,
as he rode forth this morning, looked as young, methinks, as when on the
first expedition he went to Paris, when scarce eighteen years had passed
over his head.'

'That is true,' Sir Fulke answered, 'and none can look at Philip now
without seeing that happiness has the effect of renewing youth.'

'Yes,' Lady Pembroke said; 'he is happy, as he could not be while that
hunger for forbidden fruit was upon him. At times I am tempted to wish
Frances had more tastes in sympathy with her husband, but one cannot have
all that is desired for them we love, and she is as loving a wife as any
man ever possessed. But, tell me sure, how fares it with the young trio of
scholars? Has aught come lately from your pens? and does the sage Harvey
yet rule over your metres, and render your verses after ancient model?'

'Nay, we have withdrawn from the good old man's too overbearing rule. As
you must know, Sir Philip has written an admirable _Defence of Poesie_, and
he there is the advocate for greater simplicity of expression. We have had
too much of copies from Italian models.'

'The Italians vary in merit,' Lady Pembroke said. 'Sure Dante rises to the
sublime, and Philip has been of late a devout student of the _Vita Nuova_,
and caught the spirit of that mighty genius who followed Beatrice from
depths of hell to heights of Paradise.'

'Yes, I have had the same feeling about Sir Philip which you express,' Sir
Fulke Greville said. 'Dante has raised love far above mere earthly passion
to a religion, which can worship the pure and the spiritual rather than the
mere beauty of the bodily presence. This breathes in much of Philip's later
verse. You know how he says he obeyed the muse, who bid him "look in his
heart, and write, rather than go outside for models of construction." That
great work--great work of yours and Sir Philip, the _Arcadia_--teams with
beauties, and Pamela is the embodiment of pure and noble womanhood.'

'Ah!' Lady Pembroke said, 'my brother and I look forward to a time of
leisure and retirement, when we will recast that lengthy romance, and
compress it into narrower limits. We know full well it bears the stamp of
inexperience, and there i