“Lorenzo!” “Ellen!” then came “Sir!” and “Madam!” They tried to speak, but hammer’d at each word, As if it were a flint for great Mac Adam: Such broken English never else was heard, For like an aspen leaf each nerve was stirr’d, A chilly tremor thrill’d them through and through, Their efforts to be stiff were quite absurd, They shook like jellies made without a due And proper share of common joiner’s glue. “Ellen! I’m come--to bid you--fare--farewell!” They thus began to fight their verbal duel; “Since some more hap--hap--happy man must dwell--” “Alas--Loren--Lorenzo!--cru--cru--cruel!” For so they split their words like grits for gruel. At last the Lover, as he long had plann’d, Drew out that once inestimable jewel, Her portrait, which was erst so fondly scann’d, And thrust poor Ellen’s face into her hand. “There--take it, Madam--take it back, I crave, The face of one--but I must now forget her, Bestow it on whatever hapless slave Your art has last enticed into your fetter-- And there are your epistles--there! each letter! I wish no record of your vow’s infractions, Send them to South--or Children--you had better-- They will be novelties--rare benefactions! To shine in Philosophical Transactions! “Take them--pray take them--I resign them quite! And there’s the glove you gave me leave to steal-- And there’s the handkerchief, so pure and white, Once sanctified by tears, when Miss O’Neill-- But no--you did not--cannot--do not feel A Juliet’s faith, that time could only harden! Fool that I was, in my mistaken zeal! I should have led you,--by your leave and pardon-- To Bartley’s Orrery, not Covent Garden!” [Illustration: “I RAN IT THRO’ E’EN FROM MY BOYISH DAYS.”] “And here’s the birth-day ring--nor man nor devil Should once have torn it from my living hand, Perchance ’twill look as well on Mr. Neville; And that--and that is all--and now I stand Absolved of each dissever’d tie and band-- And so farewell, till Time’s eternal sickle Shall reap our lives; in this, or foreign land Some other may be found for truth to stickle Almost as fair--and not so false and fickle!” And there he ceased: as truly it was time, For of the various themes that left his mouth, One half surpass’d her intellectual climb: She knew no more than the old Hill of Howth About that “Children of a larger growth,” Who notes proceedings of the F. R. S.’s; Kit North, was just as strange to her as South, Except the south the weathercock expresses, Nay, Bartley’s Orrery defied her guesses.