12 WEBER LITERARY JOURNAL "Do you bite your thumb at us, Sir?" Mr. Clark answered, "I do bite my thumb." Then Gustive answered, in great anger, "Do you bite your thumb at us, Sir? If you do, I am for you!" Then both of them drew their swords. "And there was much throwing about of brains." And they fought long and hard. Then Mr. Larson called out. "The quality of mercy is not strained! Oh, I am slain! Oh, treachery! Fly, good Betty, Fly! Fly! Fly! Thou mayest revenge! Oh, slave!" and he fell down, dead! Harold looked at what he had done and said, "Oh! I am Fortune's fool!" "For there is nothing either good nor bad, but thinking makes it so," smiled Betty up in his eyes, but Harold heeded not. "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hands? No my hands rather. The multitudinous seas incarnadine making the green one red!" "Well," said Betty, "Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love. Why mourn over what is done? The sleeping and the dead are but as frictures: 'Tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil. Come away; I'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell!" Then Mr. Clark meditatingly answered, "Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head!" Hand in hand they strolled out in the park together, and Mr. Clark murmured: "How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank; Here will we sit and let the sound of music Creep in on our ears: soft stillness and the night Become the watches of sweet harmony. Sit, Betty. Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patterns of bright gold. There is not the smallest orb which thou beholdest, But in his motion like an angel sings Still purring to the young-eyed Cherubims. Such harmony is in immortal souls; But whilst this muddy veslum of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it!" WEBER LITERARY JOURNAL 13 Then in the midst of their moonlight revelry, there was a sound which gready startled Mr. Clark, and, jumping to his feet, he exclaimed: "It is the Lark, and soon will come President Ricks to make me account for slaying Gustive!" "Believe me, Love, it was the nightingale," whispered Betty. "It was the Lark, the herald of the Morn! No nightingale; look, Love! what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder East; Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. I must be gone and live, or stay and die!" So, starting up, he beheld through his bedroom window: "The grey-eyed morn smiled on the frowning night, Conquering the Eastern clouds with streaks of light, And flicked darkness like a drunk and reels, From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels!" And with the coming of the dawn, came to his awaking senses, the realization that Betty was still in the clutches of Mr. Larson, and, with a heavy heart, he turned over, murmuring. "Blow, blow! thou Winter wind! Thou art not so unkind As Betty's ingratitude; Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen!"