MRS. FRAMPTON
      Even from her earliest school-days.—­What of that? 
      Or how is she concerned in my fine riddles,
      Framed for the hour’s amusement?

      SELBY
      By my hopes
      Of my new interest conceived in you,
      And by the honest passion of my heart,
      Which not obliquely I to you did hint;
      Come from the clouds of misty allegory,
      And in plain language let me hear the worst. 
      Stand I disgraced or no?

      MRS. FRAMPTON
      Then, by my hopes
      Of my new interest conceiv’d in you,
      And by the kindling passion in my breast,
      Which through my riddles you had almost read,
      Adjured so strongly, I will tell you all. 
      In her school years, then bordering on fifteen,
      Or haply not much past, she loved a youth—­

      SELBY
      My most ingenuous Widow—­

      MRS. FRAMPTON
      Met him oft
      By stealth, where I still of the party was—­

SELBY Prime confidant to all the school, I warrant, And general go-between—­ [Aside.]

      MRS. FRAMPTON
      One morn he came
      In breathless haste.  “The ship was under sail,
      Or in few hours would be, that must convey
      Him and his destinies to barbarous shores,
      Where, should he perish by inglorious hands,
      It would be consolation in his death
      To have call’d his Katherine his.”

SELBY Thus far the story Tallies with what I hoped. [Aside.]

      MRS. FRAMPTON
      Wavering between
      The doubt of doing wrong, and losing him;
      And my dissuasions not o’er hotly urged,
      Whom he had flatter’d with the bride-maid’s part;—­

      SELBY
      I owe my subtle Widow, then, for this.
      [Aside.]

      MRS. FRAMPTON
      Briefly, we went to church.  The ceremony
      Scarcely was huddled over, and the ring
      Yet cold upon her finger, when they parted—­
      He to his ship; and we to school got back,
      Scarce miss’d, before the dinner-bell could ring.

      SELBY
      And from that hour—­

      MRS. FRAMPTON
      Nor sight, nor news of him,
      For aught that I could hear, she e’er obtain’d.

      SELBY
      Like to a man that hovers in suspense
      Over a letter just receiv’d, on which
      The black seal hath impress’d its ominous token,
      Whether to open it or no, so I
      Suspended stand, whether to press my fate
      Further, or check ill curiosity
      That tempts me to more loss.—­The name, the name
      Of this fine youth?

      MRS. FRAMPTON
      What boots it, if ’twere told?

      SELBY
      Now, by our loves,
      And by my hopes of happier wedlocks, some day
      To be accomplish’d, give me his name!