“I will have no more chatter about this,” said Julia; and she tore the letter and threw the pieces on the ground. “Go, get you gone, and let the papers lie!” [Illustration: “Go, get you gone, and let the papers lie!”] “She pretends not to like it, but she would be very well pleased to be so angered with another letter,” said the shrewd maid, half aloud, as she walked away. “Nay, would I were so angered with the same!” cried Julia, eagerly seizing some of the fragments. “O hateful hands to tear such loving words! I’ll kiss each little piece of paper to make amends. Look! here is written ‘Kind Julia!’ _Unkind_ Julia! Be calm, good wind; do not blow any of the words away until I have found every letter.” And with a loving touch she began carefully to collect the torn scraps of paper. “Madam,” said Lucetta, coming back, “dinner is ready, and your father waits.” “Well, let us go,” said Julia. “Are these papers to lie here like tell-tales, madam?” “If you care about them, you had better pick them up.” “They shall not stay here, for fear of catching cold,” said Lucetta, with a mischievous little smile to herself. “I see you are very anxious to have them,” said Julia. “Ay, madam, you may say what sights you see,” said the maid, quite unabashed. “I see things, too, although you judge my eyes are shut.” “Come, come, let us go,” said Julia. * * * * * Proteus had refused to accompany his friend Valentine, but he soon found that he was not to be allowed to remain at Verona. In those days it was considered that no young man was well brought up unless he had had the advantage of foreign travel, and an uncle of his spoke very strongly on the subject. “I wonder that his father lets him spend his youth at home,” he said, “while other men of much less repute send out their sons to seek preferment--some to the wars, to try their fortune there; some to discover islands far away; some to study at the universities. For any or for all of these Proteus is fit. It will be a great disadvantage to him in after-years to have known no travel in his youth.” To this Proteus’s father, Antonio, answered that he had already been thinking over the matter. “I have reflected how he is wasting his time, and how he can never be a perfect man unless he goes out in the world to learn by experience,” he said. And he came to the conclusion that he could not do better than send Proteus after Valentine, to the Court of the Duke of Milan. Proteus was ordered to hold himself in readiness to start the next day, and all appeals were useless. The only consolation he had in leaving Julia was that the lady now frankly admitted her love. “Keep this remembrance for thy Julia’s sake,” she said, giving him a ring when the moment came to part.