By gusts, and many a sparkling hearth was
bright
[crowd;
With the piled wood, round which the family
There's something cheerful in that sort of light,
Even as a summer sky's without a cloud:
I'm fond of fire, and crickets, and ail that,
A lobster salad, and champagne, and chat.

CXXXVI.

"Twas midnight-Donna Julia was in bed,

Sleeping, most probably,-when at her door Arose a clatter might awake the dead,

If they had never been awoke before; And that they have been so, we all have read, And are to be so, at the least, one more : The door was fasten'd, but with voice and fist First knocks were heard, then 'Madam-madam -hist!

CXXXVII.

For God's sake, Madam-Madam-here's my master,

With more than half the city at his backWas ever heard of such a curst disaster!

"Tis not my fault-I kept good watch-Alack! Do pray undo the bolt a little faster

Will all be here; perhaps he yet may flyThey're on the stair just now, and in a crack Surely the window's not so very high!'

CXXXVIII.

By this time Don Alfonso was arrived, With torches, friends and servants in great number;

The major part of them had long been wived, And therefore paused not to disturb the slumber

Of any wicked woman, who contrived

By stealth her husband's temples to encumber: Examples of this kind are so contagious, Were one not punish'd, all would be outrageous.

CXXXIX.

I can't tell how, or why, or what suspicion
Could enter into Don Alfonso's head;
But for a cavalier of his condition
It surely was exceedingly ill-bred.
Without a word of previous admonition,

To hold a levée round his lady's bed,
And summon lackeys, arm'd with fire and sword,
To prove himself the thing he most abhorr'd.

CXL.

Poor Donna Julia! starting as from sleep

(Mind-that I do not say-she had not slept), Began at once to scream, and yawn, and weep; Her maid Antonio, who was an adept, Contrived to fling the bed-clothes in a heap,

As if she had just now from out them crept: I can't tell why she should take all this trouble To prove her mistress had been sleeping double. CXLI.

But Julia mistress, and Antonia maid,
Appear'd like two poor harmless women, who

out.

[out.' 'Oh!' sobb'd Antonia, 'I could tear their eyes

At this most strange and unexplain'd 'hiatus' In Don Alfonso's facts, which just now wore An awkward look; as he revolved the case, The door was fasten'd in his legal face.

CLXV.

No sooner was it bolted than-Oh shame!
Oh sin! Oh sorrow! and Oh womankind!
How can you do such things and keep your
fame,

Unless this world, and t'other too, be blind? Nothing so dear as an unfilch'd good name!

But to proceed-for there is more behind: With much heartfelt reluctance be it said,

Young Juan slipp'd, half-smother'd, from the bed.

CLXVI.

He had been hid-I don't pretend to say
How, nor can I indeed describe the where-
Young, slender, and pack'd easily, he lay,
No doubt, in little compass, round or square;
But pity him I neither must nor may

His suffocation by that pretty pair:
"Twere better, sure, to die so, than be shut
With maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.
CLXVII.

And, secondly, I pity not, because

He had no business to commit a sin,
Forbid by heavenly, fined by human, laws,
At least 'twas rather early to begin;
But at sixteen the conscience rarely gnaws

So much as when we call our old debts in At sixty years, and draw the accompts of evil, And find a deuced balance with the devil.

Antonia's patience now was at a stand'Come, come, 'tis no time now for fooling there,'

She whisper'd, in great wrath; I must deposit This pretty gentleman within the closet.'

CLXXI.

'Pray keep your nonsense for some luckier night

Who can have put my master in this mood? What will become on't?-I'm in such a fright! The devil's in the urchin, and no goodIs this a time for giggling? this a plight? Why, don't you know that it may end in blood? You'll lose your life, and I shall lose my place, My mistress, all, for that half-girlish face.

CLXXII.

'Had it but been for a stout cavalier

Of twenty-five or thirty-(Come, make haste)But for a child, what piece of work is here! I really, madam, wonder at your taste(Come, sir, get in)-my master must be near: There for the present, at the least, he's fast, And if we can but till the morning keep Our counsel-(Juan, mind, you must not sleep).'

CLXXIII.

Now Don Alfonso, entering, but alone,
Closed the oration of the trusty maid:
She loiter'd, and he told her to be gone,
An order somewhat sullenly obey'd;
However, present remedy was none, [stay'd;
And no great good seem'd answer'd if she
Regarding both with slow and sidelong view,
She snuff d the candle, curtsied, and withdrew.

CLXXIV.

Alfonso paused a minute-then begun

Some strange excuses for his late proceeding: He would not justify what he had done; To say the best, it was extreme ill-breeding; But there were ample reasons for it, none

Of which he specified in this his pleading: His speech was a fine sample, on the whole, Of rhetoric, which the learn'd call 'rigmarole.

CLXXV.

Julia said nought; though all the while there A ready answer, which at once enables [rose A matron, who her husband's foible knows,

By a few timely words to turn the tables, Which, if it does not silence, still must pose

Even if it should comprise a pack of fables; 'Tis to retort with firmness, and when he Suspects with one, do you reproach with three.

CLXXVI.

Julia, in fact, had tolerable grounds—

Alfonso's loves with Inez were well known; But whether 'twas that one's own guilt confounds

But that can't be, as has been often shown,