My tale requires than this first boyish love,

Which never found the hour its fate to prove.

My Lady smiling motions with her hand;

The crowd falls back; his Lordship, gravely bland,

Leads down the steps to where his footmen stay

In state. Griselda's carriage stops the way!

And was Griselda happy? Happy?—Yes,

In her first year of marriage, and no less

21

Perhaps, too, in her second and her third.

For youth is proud, nor cares its last sad word

To ask of fate, and not unwilling clings

To what the present hour in triumph brings.

It was enough, as I have said, for her

That she was young and fortunate and fair.

The world that loved her was a lovely world,

The rest she knew not of. Fate had not hurled

A single spear as yet against her life.

She would not argue as 'twixt maid and wife,

Where both were woman, human nature, man,

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