bosom of your most unhappy, and most wretched of
lovers,

ANTONIO.'

"Now for the _post scriptum_. If thy sighs be as long as thine
ears,----help the furnace they are blown through. Again.

"'If one ray of compassion lurks in your bosom, lady, let those
radiant fingers illuminate your pen, touching one little word
by way of answer to this love-billet, though it were but as a
rope thrown out in this overwhelming ocean of love to keep from
sinking your unhappy slave. These from my dwelling at ----.'

"O' my troth, answer thou shalt have, and that quickly, on thy fool's
pate. Dost think, Marian, it were not a deed worth trying, to quell
this noisome brute with a tough cudgel?"

"It were too good for him," replied the maid; "but if you will trust
the rather to my conceits, lady, we will make this buzzard spin. He
shall dance so rare a coarnto[v] for our pastime; beshrew me, but I would
not miss the sport for my best holiday favours."

But we leave the beauteous Kate and her mischief-loving maiden, to
plot and machinate against the unsuspecting lover. It behoveth us,
moreover, to be absent for a somewhat grave and weighty reason, to
wit, that when women are a-plotting, another and a more renowned
personage--the _beau ideal_ of whose dress and personal appearance,
according to the testimony of a reverend divine, consists of a black
coat and blue breeches--generally contrives to be present, as was by
that learned dignitary umquhile set forth in a well-known ditty, of
which the veracity is only equalled by the elegance and propriety of
the subject, and the classical dignity of its composition.

Leaving them, though in somewhat dangerous company, we just glance at
the lover, whose epistle to the proud maiden proved so galling to her
humours.

Master Anthony Hardcastle was the only son of a substantial yeoman of
good repute long resident in ----. Dying he left him, when scarcely at
man's estate, the benefit of a good name, besides a rich store of
substance, in the shape of broad pieces, together with lands and
livings. The sudden acquisition of so much loose wealth to one whose
utmost limit of spending money aforetime had been a penny at Easter
and a groat at Michaelmas, did seem like the first breaking forth of
a mighty torrent, pent up for past ages, forming its own wild and
wilful channel, in despite of all bounds and impediments. His
education had been none of the most liberal or