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some self-rebukes,

      Added to those his lady with such vigour

      Had pour'd upon him for the last half-hour,

      Quick, thick, and heavy—as a thunder-shower.

      At first he tried to hammer an excuse,

      To which the sole reply was tears and sobs,

      And indications of hysterics, whose

      Prologue is always certain throes, and throbs,

      Gasps, and whatever else the owners choose:

      Alfonso saw his wife, and thought of Job's;

      He saw too, in perspective, her relations,

      And then he tried to muster all his patience.

      He stood in act to speak, or rather stammer,

      But sage Antonia cut him short before

      The anvil of his speech received the hammer,

      With 'Pray, sir, leave the room, and say no more,

      Or madam dies.'—Alfonso mutter'd, 'D—n her,'

      But nothing else, the time of words was o'er;

      He cast a rueful look or two, and did,

      He knew not wherefore, that which he was bid.

      With him retired his 'posse comitatus,'

      The attorney last, who linger'd near the door

      Reluctantly, still tarrying there as late as

      Antonia let him—not a little sore

      At this most strange and unexplain'd 'hiatus'

      In Don Alfonso's facts, which just now wore

      An awkward look; as he revolved the case,

      The door was fasten'd in his legal face.

      No sooner was it bolted, than—Oh shame!

      O sin! Oh sorrow! and oh womankind!

      How can you do such things and keep your fame,

      Unless this world, and t' other too, be blind?

      Nothing so dear as an unfilch'd good name!

      But to proceed—for there is more behind:

      With much heartfelt reluctance be it said,

      Young Juan slipp'd half-smother'd, from the bed.

      He had been hid—I don't pretend to say

      How, nor can I indeed describe the where—

      Young, slender, and pack'd easily, he lay,

      No doubt, in little compass, round or square;

      But pity him I neither must nor may

      His suffocation by that pretty pair;

      'T were better, sure, to die so, than be shut

      With maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.

      And, secondly, I pity not, because

      He had no business to commit a sin,

      Forbid by heavenly, fined by human laws,

      At least 't was rather early to begin;

      But at sixteen the conscience rarely gnaws

      So much as when we call our old debts in

      At sixty years, and draw the accompts of evil,

      And find a deuced balance with the devil.

      Of his position I can give no notion:

      'T is written in the Hebrew Chronicle,

      How the physicians, leaving pill and potion,

      Prescribed, by way of blister, a young belle,

      When old King David's blood grew dull in motion,

      And that the medicine answer'd very well;

      Perhaps 't was in a different way applied,

      For David lived, but Juan nearly died.

      What 's to be done? Alfonso will be back

      The moment he has sent his fools away.

      Antonia's skill was put upon the rack,

      But no device could be brought into play—

      And how to parry the renew'd attack?

      Besides, it wanted but few hours of day:

      Antonia puzzled; Julia did not speak,

      But press'd her bloodless lip to Juan's cheek.

      He turn'd his lip to hers, and with his hand

      Call'd back the tangles of her wandering hair;

      Even then their love they could not all command,

      And half forgot their danger and despair:

      Antonia's patience now was at a stand—

      'Come, come, 't is no time now for fooling there,'

      She whisper'd, in great wrath—'I must deposit

      This pretty gentleman within the closet:

      'Pray, keep your nonsense for some luckier night—

      Who can have put my master in this mood?

      What will become on 't—I 'm in such a fright,

      The devil 's in the urchin, and no good—

      Is this a time for giggling? this a plight?

      Why, don't you know that it may end in blood?

      You 'll lose your life, and I shall lose my place,

      My mistress all, for that half-girlish face.

      'Had it but been for a stout cavalier

      Of twenty-five or thirty (come, make haste)—

      But for a child, what piece of work is here!

      I really, madam, wonder at your taste

      (Come, sir, get in)—my master must be near:

      There, for the present, at the least, he's fast,

      And if we can but till the morning keep

      Our counsel—(Juan, mind, you must not sleep).'

      Now, Don Alfonso entering, but alone,

      Closed the oration of the trusty maid:

      She loiter'd, and he told her to be gone,

      An order somewhat sullenly obey'd;

      However, present remedy was none,

      And no great good seem'd answer'd if she stay'd:

      Regarding both with slow and sidelong view,

      She snuff'd the candle, curtsied, and withdrew.

      Alfonso paused a minute—then begun

      Some strange excuses for his late proceeding;

      He would not justify what he had done,

      To say the best, it was extreme ill-breeding;

      But there were ample reasons for it, none

      Of which he specified in this his pleading:

      His speech was a fine sample, on the whole,

      Of rhetoric, which the learn'd call 'rigmarole.'

      Julia said nought; though all the while

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