"Nay, sweetest lady," replied Rochester, "I do not suppose you do; but I thought that fortune and yourself might have so favoured me, to let me know the right track to follow." "Not I," answered the Countess; "and in good truth, if I had the other night thought, when you first talked of love, that you but did so because you thought it would please me, I would have been as cruel as a step-dame, to cure you of such vanity. If I knew the writer of the letter, too, methinks I would have him punished for a scandal." "Not so," answered Rochester, labouring to frame some graceful speech, at which he was not dexterous. "You surely would not punish him for giving me the first hope of happiness, which I scarcely ventured to dream of." "In truth I would," replied the lady; "how dare he stand sponsor for my affections, and promise and vow so many things in my name? I declare there is not a word of truth in it, whatsoever you may think. I love you not at all, and never shall. 'Tis but your vanity that makes you believe so." "Nay, I call all these trees to witness," cried Rochester, "of what you acknowledged half an hour ago." "Oh, women will say what they do not mean," replied the Countess. "I hope no one but the trees did hear me; for I would not have too many witnesses to such a falsehood.--And so you showed the letter to Sir Thomas Overbury, and he it was, I suppose, who said I had written it?" "No," replied Rochester, "he divined that you were the person spoken of; but he said that it was a man's hand." "I wish it were burnt off!" cried the Countess, in a tone of affected anger. "I don't like this Sir Thomas Overbury." "And why not?" asked Carr. "He says that you are by far the most beautiful woman in the Court, perhaps in the world." "In that he is wise," answered the Countess, with a laugh; "but I hate him because you love him. I shall hate all that you love now." "That is kind," said Carr; "I thought the proverb ran, 'Love me, love my dog.'" "Ay," said the Countess, still in the same jesting tone; "if you will treat him as a dog. But I can tell you, henceforth and for ever, I will have you love nobody but me, or I will have nought to do with your love. I will have you all mine; you shall not give one grain of your affection to aught else on earth, whether the breath of life be warm in it, or it be but the cold production of art or nature; I will not have thee stand and gaze at a picture of Rubens, or of Titian; thou shalt not stand upon Richmond Hill, and high over the fair prospect before thee; thou shalt not listen to a bird singing in a spray, and praise its melody. Thine eyes, thine ears, thy heart, shall be all mine, or I will be jealous. There can be no partnership in love." "You must not bring a bill into Parliament for all this," replied Carr, "or it will be called monopoly, and we shall have a petition and remonstrance."