te discourse with herself (as she thought), still chiding Romeo
for being Romeo and a Montague, and wishing him some other name, or that
he would put away that hated name, and for that name which was no part
of himself, he should take all herself. At this loving word Romeo could
no longer refrain, but taking up the dialogue as if her words had been
addressed to him personally, and not merely in fancy, he bade her call
him Love, or by whatever other name she pleased, for he was no longer
Romeo, if that name was displeasing to her. Juliet, alarmed to hear a
man's voice in the garden, did not at first know who it was, that by
favour of the night and darkness had thus stumbled upon the discovery of
her secret; but when he spoke again, though her ears had not yet drunk a
hundred words of that tongue's uttering, yet so nice is a lover's
hearing, that she immediately knew him to be young Romeo, and she
expostulated with him on the danger to which he had exposed himself by
climbing the orchard walls, for if any of her kinsmen should find him
there, it would be death to him being a Montague. "Alack," said Romeo,
"there is more peril in your eye, than in twenty of their swords. Do you
but look kind upon me, lady, and I am proof against their enmity. Better
my life should be ended by their hate, than that hated life should be
prolonged, to live without your love."--"How came you into this place,"
said Juliet, "and by whose direction?"--"Love directed me," answered
Romeo: "I am no pilot, yet wert thou as far apart from me, as that vast
shore which is washed with the farthest sea, I should venture for such
merchandise." A crimson blush came over Juliet's face, yet unseen by
Romeo by reason of the night, when she reflected upon the discovery
which she had made, yet not meaning to make it, of her love to Romeo.
She would fain have recalled her words, but that was impossible: fain
would she have stood upon form, and have kept her lover at a distance,
as the custom of discreet ladies is, to frown and be perverse, and give
their suitors harsh denials at first; to stand off, and affect a coyness
or indifference, where they most love, that their lovers may not think
them too lightly or too easily won; for the difficulty of attainment
increases the value of the object. But there was no room in her case for
denials, or puttings off, or any of the customary arts of delay and
protracted courtship. Romeo had heard from her own tongue, when she did