Transcriber’s Notes: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation. Some corrections of spelling and punctuation have been made. They are listed at the end of the text. Italic text has been marked with _underscores_. MELMOTH THE WANDERER: A TALE. BY THE AUTHOR OF “BERTRAM,” &c. IN FOUR VOLUMES. VOL. IV. EDINBURGH: PRINTED FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY, AND HURST, ROBINSON, AND CO. CHEAPSIDE, LONDON. 1820. MELMOTH. CHAPTER XXIII. If he to thee no answer give, I’ll give to thee a sign; A secret known to nought that live, Save but to me and mine. * * * * * Gone to be married.------ SHAKESPEARE. “The whole of the next day was occupied by Donna Clara, to whom letter-writing was a rare, troublesome, and momentous task, in reading over and correcting her answer to her husband’s letter; in which examination she found so much to correct, interline, alter, modify, expunge, and new-model, that finally Donna Clara’s epistle very much resembled the work she was now employed in, namely, that of _overcasting_ a piece of tapestry wrought by her grandmother, representing the meeting of king Solomon and the queen of Sheba. The new work, instead of repairing, made fearful havock among the old; but Donna Clara went on, like her countryman at Mr Peter’s puppet-show, playing away (with her needle) in a perfect shower of back-strokes, fore-strokes, side-thrusts, and counter-thrusts, till not a figure in the tapestry could know himself again. The faded face of Solomon was garnished with a florid beard of scarlet silk (which Fra Jose at first told her she must rip out, as it made Solomon very little better than Judas) that made him resemble a boiled scallop. The fardingale of the queen of Sheba was expanded to an enormous hoop, of whose shrunk and pallid wearer it might be truly said, “_Minima est pars sui_.” The dog that, in the original tapestry, stood by the spurred and booted heel of the oriental monarch, (who was clad in Spanish costume), by dint of a few tufts of black and yellow satin, was converted into a tiger,--a transformation which his grinning fangs rendered as authentic as heart could wish. And the parrot perched on the queen’s shoulder, with the help of a train of green and gold, which the ignorant mistook for her majesty’s mantle, proved a very passable peacock.”