"Bravo! the beginning is excellent!... We can picture the masked man and the sick woman."
The woman is near her confinement; her lover is carrying her away and they are on their way to embark at Shields when the pangs of childbirth come upon the fugitive; it is important to conceal all trace of her; her father, who is the all-powerful ambassador of Spain in London, is in pursuit of her. The doctor attends to them with all haste: he points out a room to the masked man who carries the patient into it; then he rouses his wife to help him to attend to the sick woman. At this moment they hear the sound of a carriage passing at full gallop. The cries of the woman call the doctor to her side; the masked man comes back on the stage, not having the courage to witness his mistress's sufferings. After a short time the doctor rushes to find his guest: the unknown woman has just given birth to a boy, and mother and child are both doing well."
The narrator interrupted himself.
"Do you think," he asked me, "that this scene would be possible on the stage?"
"Why not? It was possible in Terence's day."
"In what way?"
"Thus:
"PAMPHILA.
Miseram me! differor deloribus! Juno Lucina, fer opem! Serva me, obsecro!
REGIO.
Numnam ilia, quæso, parturit?... Hem!
PAMPHILA.
Oh! unhappy wretch! My pains overcome me! Juno Lucina, come to my aid! save me, I entreat thee.
REGIO.
Hullo, I say, is she about to be confined?"
"Is that in Terence?"
"Certainly."