ver cover sweet fruit with worthless leaves? Come, do not
drop again so soon so faint a smile. I will not have you grave, nor
very serious. I pity you; I must not love you: if I might, I would.

_Dante._ Yet how much love is due to me, O Bice, who have loved you,
as you well remember, even from your tenth year. But it is reported,
and your words confirm it, that you are going to be married.

_Beatrice._ If so, and if I could have laughed at that, and if my
laughter could have estranged you from me, would you blame me?

_Dante._ Tell me the truth.

_Beatrice._ The report is general.

_Dante._ The truth! the truth! Tell me, Bice.

_Beatrice._ Marriages, it is said, are made in heaven.

_Dante._ Is heaven then under the paternal roof?

_Beatrice._ It has been to me hitherto.

_Dante._ And now you seek it elsewhere.

_Beatrice._ I seek it not. The wiser choose for the weaker. Nay, do
not sigh so. What would you have, my grave pensive Dante? What can I
do?

_Dante._ Love me.

_Beatrice._ I always did.

_Dante._ Love me? O bliss of heaven!

_Beatrice._ No, no, no! Forbear! Men's kisses are always mischievous
and hurtful; everybody says it. If you truly loved me, you would never
think of doing so.

_Dante._ Nor even this!

_Beatrice._ You forget that you are no longer a boy; and that it is
not thought proper at your time of life to continue the arm at all
about the waist. Beside, I think you would better not put your head
against my bosom; it beats too much to be pleasant to you. Why do you
wish it? why fancy it can do you any good? It grows no cooler; it
seems to grow even hotter. Oh, how it burns! Go, go; it hurts me too:
it struggles, it aches, it sobs. Thank you, my gentle friend, for
removing your brow away; your hair is very thick and long; and it
began to heat me more than you can imagine. While it was there, I
could not see your face so well, nor talk with you so quietly.

_Dante._ Oh, when shall we talk quietly in future?

_Beatrice._ When I am married. I shall often come to visit my father.
He has always been solitary since my mother's death, which happened in
my infancy, long before you knew me.

_Dante._ How can he endure the solitude of his house when you have
left it?

_Beatrice._ The very question I asked him.

_Dante._ You did not then wish to ... to ... go away?

_Beatrice._ Ah no! It is sad to be an outcast at fifteen.

_Dante._ An outcast?

_Beatrice._ Forced to leave a home.