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“Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt Truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.”

To be sure, he had originally composed this quatrain for Ophelia; but what would you have? He had scarcely meant it then; he meant it now; besides, a felicitous rhyme never goes out of fashion. It always fits.

While transcribing the verse his thoughts naturally reverted to Ophelia, for the little poesy was full of a faint scent of the past, like a pressed flower. His conscience did not prick him at all. How fortunate for him and for her that matters had gone no further between them? Predisposed to melancholy, and inheriting a not very strong mind from her father, Ophelia was a lady who needed cheering up, if ever poor lady did. He, Hamlet, was the last man on the globe with whom she should have had any tender affiliation. If they had wed, they would have caught each other’s despondency, and died, like a pair of sick ravens, within a fortnight. What had become of her? Had she gone into a nunnery? He would make her abbess, if he ever returned to Elsinore.

After a month or two of courtship, there being no earthly reason to prolong it, Hamlet and Juliet were privately married in the Franciscan Chapel, Friar Laurence officiating; but there was a grand banquet that night at the Capulets’, to which all Verona went. At Hamlet’s intercession, the Montagues were courteously asked to this festival. To the amazement of every one the Montagues accepted the invitation and came, and were treated royally, and the long, lamentable feud–it would have sorely puzzled either house to explain what it was all about–was at an end. The adherents of the Capulets and the Montagues were forbidden on the spot to bite any more thumbs at each other.

“It will detract from the general gayety of the town,” Mercutio remarked. “Signior Tybalt, my friend, I shall never have the pleasure of running you through the diaphragm; a cup of wine with you!”

The guests were still at supper in the great pavilion erected in the garden, which was as light as day with the glare of innumerable flambeaux set among the shrubbery. Hamlet and Juliet, with several others, had withdrawn from the tables, and were standing in the doorway of the pavilion, when Hamlet’s glance fell upon the familiar form of a young man who stood with one foot on the lower step, holding his plumed bonnet in his hand. His hose and doublet were travel-worn, but his honest face was as fresh as daybreak.

“What! Horatio?”

“The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.”

“Sir, my good friend: I ‘ll change that name with you. What brings you to Verona?”

“I fetch you news, my lord.”

“Good news? Then the king is dead.”

“The king lives, but Ophelia is no more.”

“Ophelia dead!”

“Not so, my lord; she ‘s married.”

“I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student.”

“As I do live, my honored lord, ‘t is true.”

“Married, say you?”

“Married to him that sent me hither–a gentleman of winning ways and a most choice conceit, the scion of a noble house here in Verona–one Romeo.”

The oddest little expression flitted over Juliet’s face. There was never woman yet, even on her bridal day, could forgive a jilted lover marrying.

“Ophelia wed!” murmured the bridegroom.

“Do you know the lady, dear?”

“Excellent well,” replied Hamlet, turning to Juliet; “a most estimable young person, the daughter of my father’s chamberlain. She is rather given to singing ballads of an elegiac nature,” added the prince, reflectingly, “but our madcap Romeo will cure her of that. Methinks I see them now”–

“Oh, where, my lord?”

“In my mind’s eye, Horatio, surrounded by their little ones–noble youths and graceful maidens, in whom the impetuosity of the fiery Romeo is tempered by the pensiveness of the fair Ophelia. I shall take it most unkindly of them, love,” toying with Juliet’s fingers, “if they do not name their first boy Hamlet.”

It was just as my lord Hamlet finished speaking that the last horse-car for Boston–providentially belated between Water-town and Mount Auburn–swept round the curve of the track on which I was walking. The amber glow of the car-lantern lighted up my figure in the gloom, the driver gave a quick turn on the brake, and the conductor, making a sudden dexterous clutch at the strap over his head, sounded the death-knell of my fantasy as I stepped upon the rear platform.