find currency amongst the mean, the abject,
and the infamous!"

"May I perish, lady," said Wayland Smith, observing that her violence
directed itself towards him, "if I have done anything to merit this
strange passion! I have said but what many men say."

By this time the Countess had recovered her composure, and endeavoured,
alarmed by the anxious hints of Janet, to suppress all appearance of
displeasure. "I were loath," she said, "good fellow, that our Queen
should change the virgin style so dear to us her people--think not of
it." And then, as if desirous to change the subject, she added, "And
what is this paste, so carefully put up in the silver box?" as she
examined the contents of a casket in which drugs and perfumes were
contained in separate drawers.

"It is a remedy, Madam, for a disorder of which I trust your ladyship
will never have reason to complain. The amount of a small turkey-bean,
swallowed daily for a week, fortifies the heart against those black
vapours which arise from solitude, melancholy, unrequited affection,
disappointed hope--"

"Are you a fool, friend?" said the Countess sharply; "or do you think,
because I have good-naturedly purchased your trumpery goods at your
roguish prices, that you may put any gullery you will on me? Who ever
heard that affections of the heart were cured by medicines given to the
body?"

"Under your honourable favour," said Wayland, "I am an honest man, and
I have sold my goods at an honest price. As to this most precious
medicine, when I told its qualities, I asked you not to purchase it, so
why should I lie to you? I say not it will cure a rooted affection
of the mind, which only God and time can do; but I say that this
restorative relieves the black vapours which are engendered in the body
of that melancholy which broodeth on the mind. I have relieved many with
it, both in court and city, and of late one Master Edmund Tressilian, a
worshipful gentleman in Cornwall, who, on some slight received, it was
told me, where he had set his affections, was brought into that state of
melancholy which made his friends alarmed for his life."

He paused, and the lady remained silent for some time, and then asked,
with a voice which she strove in vain to render firm and indifferent in
its tone, "Is the gentleman you have mentioned perfectly recovered?"

"Passably, madam," answered Wayland; "he hath at least no bodily
complaint."

"I will take some of the medicine, Janet,"