Chartley laid his hand affectionately upon his cousin's, saying, "Far from thinking her too young to be your wife, Arden--far from thinking you should not make her such, I believe and trust that you will find happiness with her, such as you have never known before. I have seen the honeysuckle in the woods, twining itself sweetly round the trees. It chooses generally a stout and sturdy trunk, of mature growth, and there it winds itself up, loading the strong branches with its nectar-dropping blossoms. Sometimes, however, I have seen it climb up a light sapling, till they mingled leaves and flowers together, in one heavy mass; but then, there being no steadiness in either, they have been blown to and fro with every wind, till a fiercer blast of the tempest has broken or rooted up the frail prop; and the honeysuckle has been laid low with that it clung to." "Well, I have no cause to make the objection if she do not," answered Arden. "She has wound herself round my heart, I know not how; but I have concealed nothing from her: She knows my birth-day as well as I do myself; and she says she does not care a groat"--Chartley smiled--"no, not exactly a groat," continued Arden, "but what she said, was this, that when one loved any body, the heart never stopped to ask whether he was rich or poor, old or young; that where calculation entered, love was not. Upon my life, I believe what she said is true; for I know I began to make love to her without any calculation at all, and not much thinking of what I was about. Is that the usual way, Chartley?" "Precisely!" answered his cousin. "Well, then, let us go to bed," said Arden; "for I shall rouse this old lord by cock-crow, and send him off, as soon as I can, to York." CHAPTER XXXVII. To write a really good play is undoubtedly a much more difficult thing, and the achievement a much more glorious one, than to write a good romance; and yet the dramatist has some very great advantages over the romance writer. He is conventionally permitted to skip over all dull details, which the romance-writer is obliged to furnish. The prominent points alone are those with which he deals; the burden of the rest is cast upon nimble-footed imagination, who, supplies in a moment, from her own inexhaustible stores, all that is requisite to complete the tale, with much richer and more brilliant materials than pen or tongue can afford. If some reference to events going on at a distance from the scene be necessary in words, they may be as brief as the writer wills; and all that is needful to describe the approach of dangers, which have been long preparing, and the effect upon him to whom the tale is told, is comprised in two brief sentences: _Stanley_--Richmond is on the seas. _King Richard_--There let him sink--and be the seas on him, White-livered runagate!