rare endowments, and highly accomplished; and Claudio, assisted by his
kind prince, soon prevailed upon Leonato to fix an early day for the
celebration of his marriage with Hero.

Claudio was to wait but a few days before he was to be married to
his fair lady; yet he complained of the interval being tedious, as
indeed most young men are impatient, when they are waiting for the
accomplishment of any event they have set their hearts upon: the
prince therefore, to make the time seem short to him, proposed as a
kind of merry pastime, that they should invent some artful scheme
to make Benedick and Beatrice fall in love with each other. Claudio
entered with great satisfaction into this whim of the prince, and
Leonato promised them his assistance, and even Hero said she would do
any modest office to help her cousin to a good husband.

The device the prince invented was, that the gentlemen should make
Benedick believe that Beatrice was in love with him, and that Hero
should make Beatrice believe that Benedick was in love with her.

The prince, Leonato, and Claudio, began their operations first, and
watching an opportunity when Benedick was quietly seated reading in
an arbour, the prince and his assistants took their station among the
trees behind the arbour, so near that Benedick could not choose but
hear all they said; and after some careless talk the prince said,
"Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me the other day,--that
your niece Beatrice was in love with signior Benedick? I did never
think that lady would have loved any man." "No, nor I neither, my
lord," answered Leonato. "It is most wonderful that she should so
doat on Benedick, whom she in all outward behaviour seemed ever to
dislike." Claudio confirmed all this, with saying that Hero had told