"I love thee more than all the train
Who flaunt, who flatter, and who feign,
And vow that they adore:
I love thee as men loved of yore--
Ah, no, I love thee more--far more
Than man e'er loved before."
"I do not think I could have resisted those verses well sung," cried Isadore, smiling as he concluded, if I had been the most disdainful beauty that ever carried a hawk upon her glove in the days of old. "What do you say, Marian?"
"I do not know how far my powers of resistance might go," answered Marian de Vaux, "but I should very much like to hear the rest of the story. You say that it is in a drama, Colonel Manners, I think; pray, can it be procured?"
"I am afraid not," answered Manners: "it is the writing of a lady, and has never been given to the world; at least, as far as I know."
"But at all events tell us the fate of the lover," exclaimed Isadore; "that you are bound to do in common charity, after having excited our curiosity."
"Oh, he is made happy, of course," he replied, "as all lovers are, or should be."
"Say true lovers, if you please, Colonel Manners," cried Isadore, "and then I will agree; but if a woman were to make happy, as you gentlemen call it before you are married, every impertinent personage who comes up, and making you a low bow, with his hat under his arm, asks you, 'Pray, madam, will you marry me?' as if he were asking you merely to walk a minuet, she would have enough to do, I can assure you."