“So suitable raiment was purchased, and when the youth appeared the women were much surprised to see a perfect gentleman, grave, and ‘to the manor born.’ No longer now did he hold horses at the entrance, but occasionally appeared on the stage in a non-speaking part, at which times the young Italian lady saw but one figure on the stage. The mother and the young man often when walking homeward discussed the play, and the young man seemed to remember each part, and would repeat entire stanzas when asked to do so, word for word; and then with no show of egotism but frankly, say ‘It should have been thus expressed--or thus.’ To all of which the mother and daughter made no answer, but looked at each other in amazement to think that one who had not traveled, and knew not the ways of courts, nor had scarcely learned to read, could make amends to Marlowe. “One night before the play the manager appeared and offered five and twenty pounds as reward for the best play--all given by the Earl of Southampton. After the play as they walked home, flushed were the daughter’s cheeks, and fast beat her heart. Her blood ran high, as in mad riot. She scarcely seemed to touch the earth as fast she walked and held fast and fast and tighter still to the young man’s arm. At last he turned his face--his eyes met hers--her voice came with a bound-- “‘The play--the play’s the thing! We’ll write it--you and I! The plot? It’s mine already, all in a big French book, musty and hid away. Yes, the plot we’ll borrow and give it back again if France demand. Ha--you, William, come to-morrow night, and you shall write it out in your own matchless words while I translate. The play’s the thing--the play is the thing!’ “Thus spoke the impetuous Italian girl, and the mother was much surprised at the wild outburst of her artless child, but gave assent, and gently the mother mused in accent low as echo answers voice--‘The play’s the thing!’ And the young man to himself, as homeward he did stroll, did softly say, ‘The play’s the thing! The play’s the thing!’” CHAPTER XV. SHAKESPEARIANA--“TRUTH, LORD.” After dinner in the cabin we moved our chairs out under the trees, and The Man said: “Yes, I know you wish to hear more about Shakespeare, but before I tell you more of his personal history, let us consider two or three facts in reference to him. First, you know he was not technically a scholar. Between him and the great ancient hearts he was to read there intervened no frosty twilight of antiquarian lore. He had not to clip and measure and adjust amid moth-eaten cerements and rusty armor that he might be able to fashion forth the exterior and shell of times long since gone by, but only to cast asunder the gates of the human heart, that those deathless notes might be heard which are the undertone of human emotion in all times.