nd Romeo, who was too full of
thoughts of his mistress and that blessed meeting to allow him to sleep,
instead of going home, bent his course to a monastery hard by, to find
Friar Lawrence. The good friar was already up at his devotions, but
seeing young Romeo abroad so early, he conjectured rightly that he had
not been abed that night, but that some distemper of youthful affection
had kept him waking. He was right in imputing the cause of Romeo's
wakefulness to love, but he made a wrong guess at the object, for he
thought that his love for Rosaline had kept him waking. But when Romeo
revealed his new passion for Juliet, and requested the assistance of the
friar to marry them that day, the holy man lifted up his eyes and hands
in a sort of wonder at the sudden change in Romeo's affections, for he
had been privy to all Romeo's love for Rosaline, and his many complaints
of her disdain: and he said, that young men's love lay not truly in
their hearts, but in their eyes. But Romeo replying, that he himself had
often chidden him for doting on Rosaline, who could not love him again,
whereas Juliet both loved and was beloved by him, the friar assented in
some measure to his reasons; and thinking that a matrimonial alliance
between young Juliet and Romeo might happily be the means of making up
the long breach between the Capulets and the Montagues; which no one
more lamented than this good friar, who was a friend to both the
families and had often interposed his mediation to make up the quarrel
without effect; partly moved by policy, and partly by his fondness for
young Romeo, to whom he could deny nothing, the old man consented to
join their hands in marriage.

Now was Romeo blessed indeed, and Juliet, who knew his intent from a
messenger which she had despatched according to promise, did not fail to
be early at the cell of Friar Lawrence, where their hands were joined in
holy marriage; the good friar praying the heavens to smile upon that
act, and in the union of this young Montague and young Capulet to bury
the old strife and long dissensions of their families.

The ceremony being over, Juliet hastened home, where she stayed
impatient for the coming of night, at which time Romeo promised to come
and meet her in the orchard, where they had met the night before; and
the time between seemed as tedious to her, as the night before some
great festival seems to an impatient child, that has got new finery
which it may not put on ti