University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

The Village-well.—Griselda and Lenette filling their pitchers with the well-water.
LENETTE.
And so this solemn keeping of the face,—
The seldom-smiling lip, and smooth staid cheek,
Where never deeper blush did dare to show
Than just enoúgh to say it was not stone,—
The even beating of an idle heart,—
The lip that had no leisure for love-talk;—
Ah! must it end—all, all, thou stricken one,
With sighs and an alas?

GRISELDA.
I said not so!
Only I said, if it were well to love,
And if to love were to be loved again;
And if it were not matter for a blush
To say so much; his was a noble face,
With such sweet meanings written duskly in't,
That it were no life lost to spell them out
All a life long.

LENETTE.
Ah! the keen Stranger-Trader,
That bought a heart for nothing.

GRISELDA.
Thou dost wrong me,
Naming our names together.

LENETTE.
Wherefore, sweet?

GRISELDA.
They make no music; small thanks he would give
For the undowered lip and empty hand
Thou idly makest his. Yet he was fair.

LENETTE.
Oh! very fair,—nay, almost fair enough
To love, if only it were well to love;
And if to love were to be loved again,
And if, and if, and if—

GRISELDA.
Thou false, false friend!
How like a cruel justicer thou turn'st
My own allowings to my own undoing!
I tell thee I am scatheless: how should I
Have time or turn for loving?

LENETTE.
I believe it,
Specially as thou seal'st thy protest too,
With a large sigh that saith,“I love him so!”
Nay, answer not! I'll not believe thy no
Fifty times spoken; and take comfort, sweet,
Thou'rt in the fashion,—the Court's wiving too,
They go a-hunting for a Queen to-day;
Come, now, and see them pass.

GRISELDA.
I'll go with thee,
That thou mayest have a thing to jest upon;
But help me first to call the cattle home.

[Exeunt.