Tower, Tower, Tower Green!
Groom in dreary dungeon lying,
Groom as good as dead, or dying,
For a pretty maiden sighing--
Pretty maid of seventeen!
Seven-- seven-- seventeen!

Strange adventure that we're trolling:
Modest maid and gallant groom--
Gallant, gallant, gallant groom!--
While the funeral bell is tolling,
Tolling, tolling, Bim-a-boom!
Bim-a, Bim-a, Bim-a-boom!
Modest maiden will not tarry;
Though but sixteen year she carry,
She must marry, she must marry,
Though the altar be a tomb--
Tower-- Tower-- Tower tomb!
Tower tomb! Tower tomb!
Though the altar be a tomb!
Tower, Tower, Tower tomb!

[Exeunt DAME CARRUTHERS, MERYLL, and KATE.

FAIRFAX So my mysterious bride is no other than this winsome
Elsie! By my hand, 'tis no such ill plunge in
Fortune's lucky bag! I might have fared worse with my
eyes open! But she comes. Now to test her principles.
'Tis not every husband who has a chance of wooing his
own wife!

[Enter ELSIE

FAIRFAX Mistress Elsie!

ELSIE Master Leonard!

FAIRFAX So thou leavest us to-night?

ELSIE Yes. Master Leonard. I have been kindly tended, and I
almost fear I am loth to go.

FAIRFAX And this Fairfax. Wast thou glad when he escaped?

ELSIE Why, truly, Master Leonard, it is a sad thing that a
young and gallant gentleman should die in the very
fullness of his life.

FAIRFAX Then when thou didst faint in my arms, it was for joy
at his safety?

ELSIE It may be so. I was highly wrought, Master Leonard,
and I am but a girl, and so, when I an highly wrought,
I faint.

FAIRFAX Now, dost thou know, I am consumed with a parlous
jealousy?

ELSIE Thou? And of whom?

FAIRFAX Why, of this Fairfax, surely!

ELSIE Of Colonel Fairfax?

FAIRFAX Aye. Shall I be frank with thee? Elsie-- I love thee,
ardently, passionately! [ELSIE ala