SELBY Good words, gentle Kate, And not a thought irreverent of our Widow.  Why, ’twere unmannerly at any time, But most uncourteous on our wedding day, When we should shew most hospitable.—­Some wine. [Wine is brought.]

      I am for sports.  And now I do remember,
      The old Egyptians at their banquets placed
      A charnel sight of dead men’s skulls before them,
      With images of cold mortality,
      To temper their fierce joys when they grew rampant. 
      I like the custom well:  and ere we crown
      With freer mirth the day, I shall propose,
      In calmest recollection of our spirits,
      We drink the solemn “Memory of the dead.”

      MRS. FRAMPTON
      Or the supposed dead.
      [Aside to him.]

SELBY Pledge me, good wife. [She fills.] Nay, higher yet, till the brimm’d cup swell o’er.

      KATHERINE
      I catch the awful import of your words;
      And, though I could accuse you of unkindness,
      Yet as your lawful and obedient wife,
      While that name lasts (as I perceive it fading,
      Nor I much longer may have leave to use it)
      I calmly take the office you impose;
      And on my knees, imploring their forgiveness,
      Whom I in heav’n or earth may have offended,
      Exempt from starting tears, and woman’s weakness,
      I pledge you, Sir—­the Memory of the Dead!
      [She drinks kneeling.]

      SELBY
      ’Tis gently and discreetly said, and like
      My former loving Kate.

      MRS. FRAMPTON
      Does he relent?
      [Aside.]

      SELBY
      That ceremony past, we give the day
      To unabated sport.  And, in requital
      Of certain stories, and quaint allegories,
      Which my rare Widow hath been telling to me
      To raise my morning mirth, if she will lend
      Her patient hearing, I will here recite
      A Parable; and, the more to suit her taste,
      The scene is laid in the East.

MRS. FRAMPTON I long to hear it.  Some tale, to fit his wife. [Aside.]

      KATHERINE
      Now, comes my TRIAL.

      LUCY
      The hour of your deliverance is at hand,
      If I presage right.  Bear up, gentlest sister.

      SELBY
      “The Sultan Haroun”—­Stay—­O now I have it—­
      “The Caliph Haroun in his orchards had
      A fruit-tree, bearing such delicious fruits,
      That he reserved them for his proper gust;
      And through the Palace it was Death proclaim’d
      To any one that should purloin the same.”

      MRS. FRAMPTON
      A heavy penance for so light a fault—­