Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/214

192 gentlemen who came to see this wonderful heiress. But many, nay, a greater part, turned back before risking the hard conditions of the choice. Others when they saw her did not desire to marry a woman so superior to themselve in intellect, for she sent the keen arrows of her shrewd wit right and left; and some of the weak minded cavaliers, who came prepared to venture much to gain such wealth, retired quickly from the presence of a woman who saw their defects with eyes so quick. Portia used her wit often in self-protection, and with no want of womanly delicacy, for in her heart she wished defeat to every wooer who had approached her. In the depths of her heart, unconfessed even to her dearest confidante, her companion and waiting-woman Nerissa, she held the memory of one gentleman, before whom all others seemed but poor creatures, unworthy a woman’s regard. This gentleman, whose name she scarcely breathed even to her own most secret thoughts, was Bassanio, a native of Venice, most courteous in his manners, and in acquirements a very pattern of the time. He had once before her father’s death visited their palace at Belmont, in company with a young nobleman of Italy, and although no word of love had ever passed between them, their eyes had delivered fair speechless messages to each other, whose import still lingered in her memory.