MILDRED and GUENDOLEN GUENDOLEN. Now, Mildred, spare those pains. I have not left Our talkers in the library, and climbed The wearisome ascent to this your bower In company with you,--I have not dared... Nay, worked such prodigies as sparing you Lord Mertoun's pedigree before the flood, Which Thorold seemed in very act to tell --Or bringing Austin to pluck up that most Firm-rooted heresy--your suitor's eyes, He would maintain, were grey instead of blue-- I think I brought him to contrition!--Well, I have not done such things, (all to deserve A minute's quiet cousin's talk with you,) To be dismissed so coolly. MILDRED. Guendolen! What have I done? what could suggest... GUENDOLEN. There, there! Do I not comprehend you'd be alone To throw those testimonies in a heap, Thorold's enlargings, Austin's brevities, With that poor silly heartless Guendolen's Ill-time misplaced attempted smartnesses-- And sift their sense out? now, I come to spare you Nearly a whole night's labour. Ask and have! Demand, he answered! Lack I ears and eyes? Am I perplexed which side of the rock-table The Conqueror dined on when he landed first, Lord Mertoun's ancestor was bidden take-- The bow-hand or the arrow-hand's great meed? Mildred, the Earl has soft blue eyes! MILDRED. My brother-- Did he... you said that he received him well? GUENDOLEN. If I said only "well" I said not much. Oh, stay--which brother? MILDRED. Thorold! who--Who else? GUENDOLEN. Thorold (a secret) is too proud by half,-- Nay, hear me out--with us he's even gentler Than we are with our birds. Of this great House The least retainer that e'er caught his glance Would die for him, real dying--no mere talk: And in the world, the court, if men would cite The perfect spirit of honour, Thorold's name Rises of its clear nature to their lips. But he should take men's homage, trust in it, And care no more about what drew it down. He has desert, and that, acknowledgment; Is he content? MILDRED. You wrong him, Guendolen. GUENDOLEN. He's proud, confess; so proud with brooding o'er The light of his interminable line, An ancestry with men all paladins, And women all... MILDRED. Dear Guendolen, 'tis late! When yonder purple pane the climbing moon Pierces, I know 'tis midnight. GUENDOLEN. Well, that Thorold Should rise up from such musings, and receive One come audaciously to graft himself Into this peerless stock, yet find no flaw, No slightest spot in such an one... MILDRED. Who finds A spot in Mertoun?