It is
enough that you know the grounds on which you stand. At a fitter
opportunity, I will, as it is my duty, lay before you the enormity of
what you are said to have meditated, with the freedom which becomes one,
who, however humble, is appointed to explain to his fellow-creatures the
laws of his Maker. In the meantime, I am not afraid that you will take
any hasty step, after such a warning as this."

So saying, he turned from the lady with that dignity which a conscious
discharge of duty confers, yet, at the same time, with a sense of deep
pain, inflicted by the careless levity of her whom he addressed. She did
not any longer attempt to detain him, but made her escape from the
arbour by one alley, as she heard voices which seemed to approach it
from another. The clergyman, who took the opposite direction, met in
full encounter a whispering and tittering pair, who seemed, at his
sudden appearance, to check their tone of familiarity, and assume an
appearance of greater distance towards each other. The lady was no other
than the fair Queen of the Amazons, who seemed to have adopted the
recent partiality of Titania towards Bully Bottom, being in conference
such and so close as we have described, with the late representative of
the Athenian weaver, whom his recent visit to his chamber had
metamorphosed into the more gallant disguise of an ancient Spanish
cavalier. He now appeared with cloak and drooping plume, sword, poniard,
and guitar, richly dressed at all points, as for a serenade beneath his
mistress's window; a silk mask at the breast of his embroidered doublet
hung ready to be assumed in case of intrusion, as an appropriate part of
the national dress.

It sometimes happened to Mr. Cargill, as we believe it may chance to
other men much subject to absence of mind, that, contrary to their wont,
and much after the manner of a sunbeam suddenly piercing a deep mist,
and illuminating one particular object in the landscape, some sudden
recollection rushes upon them, and seems to compel them to act under it,
as under the influence of complete certainty and conviction. Mr. Cargill
had no sooner set eyes on the Spanish cavalier, in whom he neither knew
the Earl of Etherington, nor recognised Bully Bottom, than with hasty
emotion he seized on his reluctant hand, and exclaimed, with a mixture
of eagerness and solemnity, "I rejoice to see you!--Heaven has sent you
here in its own good time."

"I thank you, sir," replied Lord