ready." "Fair Beatrice, I thank you," said Benedick. "I took no more pains to come than you take pains to thank me," was the rejoinder, intended to freeze him. But it did not freeze him. It warmed him. The meaning he squeezed out of her rude speech was that she was delighted to come to him. Hero, who had undertaken the task of melting the heart of Beatrice, took no trouble to seek an occasion. She simply said to her maid Margaret one day, "Run into the parlor and whisper to Beatrice that Ursula and I are talking about her in the orchard." Having said this, she felt as sure that Beatrice would overhear what was meant for her ears as if she had made an appointment with her cousin. In the orchard was a bower, screened from the sun by honeysuckles, and Beatrice entered it a few minutes after Margaret had gone on her errand. "But are you sure," asked Ursula, who was one of Hero's attendants, "that Benedick loves Beatrice so devotedly?" "So say the Prince and my betrothed," replied Hero, "and they wished me to tell her, but I said, 'No! Let Benedick get over it.'" "Why did you say that?" "Because Beatrice is unbearably proud. Her eyes sparkle with disdain and scorn. She is too conceited to love. I should not like to see her making game of poor Benedick's love. I would rather see Benedick waste away like a covered fire." "I don't agree with you," said Ursula. "I think your cousin is too clear-sighted not to see the merits of Benedick." "He is the one man in Italy, except Claudio," said Hero. The talkers then left the orchard, and Beatrice, excited and tender, stepped out of the summer-house, saying to herself, "Poor dear Benedick, be true to me, and your love shall tame this wild heart of mine." We now return to the plan of hate. The night before the day fixed for Claudio's wedding, Don John entered a room in which Don Pedro and Claudio were conversing, and asked Claudio if he intended to be married to-morrow. "You know he does!" said Don Pedro. "He may know differently," said Don John, "when he has seen
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