gues. Let us get out of this
peaceably, like soldiers who are too much gentlemen to cause a brawl
under a host's roof."

With this Mercutio pushed Hamlet to the door, where they were joined by
Benvolio.

Juliet, with her eyes fixed upon the retreating maskers, stretched out
her hand and grasped the arm of an ancient serving-woman who happened to
be passing.

"Quick, good Nurse! go ask his name of yonder gentleman. Nay, not the
one 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 to
herself 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 couch
in a brown study. The silvery moonlight, struggling through the swaying
branches of a tree outside the window, drifted doubtfully into the room,
and made a parody of that fleecy veil which erewhile had floated about
the lissome form of the lovely Capulet. That he loved her, and must
tell her that he loved her, was a foregone conclusion; but how should
he contrive to see Juliet again? No one knew him in Verona; he had
carefully preserved his incognito; even Mercutio regarded him as simply
a young gentleman from Denmark, taking his ease in a foreign city.
Presented, by Mercutio, as a rich Danish tourist, the Capulets would
receive 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 stuffed
into his wallet on quitting Elsi-nore. He lighted a taper, and began
examining the papers. Among them were the half dozen billet-doux which
Ophelia had returned to him the night before his departure. They were,
neatly tied together by a length of black ribbon, to which was attached
a sprig of rosemary.

"That was just like Ophelia!" muttered the young man, tossing the
package into the wallet again; "she was always having cheerful ideas
like that."

How long ago seemed the night she had handed him these love-letters, in
her demure little way! How misty and remote seemed everything connected
with the old life at Elsinore! His father's death, his mother's
marriage, his anguish and isolation--they were like things th