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you never go about to apply that sovereign balm by which only my wounds are capable of being cured? And is not this next to a demonstration that you have no love for me?"       To this Rosamond, with blushes that rendered      her still more beautiful, replied---        “Your majesty is pleased to speak to me in      figures ; but I am a simple maid, and cannot un-      derstand you.        " Ah, Rosamond," said the king, "I know you understand me well enough ; who is more blind than those that will not see? But since you force me to speak plainly, know it is your beauty that has wounded me; and it is your charms make me     a eaptive. Love calls for love, nor can my wounds be cured without enjoyment: if therefore you have the regard for me your words seem to intimate, shew that it is real, by admitting me to your em- braces, and grant me the full fruition of your love."       Rosamond, extremly disordered at what the king      said, was going to kneel down, but he would not      suffer her, and said---        " Kneel not, dearest Rosamond ; it is I that should kneel to thee--I only ask--"       Rosamond interrupting him, said--        " Ask for my life, great sire, and you shall have it, or any thing that is in my power to give : but ask not for my honour, that is so precious and va- luable--I can never part with it but to a husband. My outward form is but a casquet, virtue is the jewel, and when that is gone, what worth is the other."       The king was surprised to hear such words from      Rosamond, of whom he thought to make an easy      conquest, and was as much in love with her virtue      as he was with her beauty. But as he knew that      stones, by continual dropping of the water, wear      away, so he never doubted, but, with repeated