"Perhaps she may be with him at his house, if he has one; only, she was
not with him on the Rialto or Cornmarket. She was with him two years
ago, I know; and he and she were better off then than he is now, I
suspect. And that is why it did me good, sir, to see him a pedlar--
a common pedlar--fallen into the sere, like the man he abandoned!"

"Humph--where were they two years ago?"

"At a village not far from Humberston. He had a pretty house, sir, and
sold baskets; and the girl was there too, favoured by a great lady--a
Marchioness, sir! Gods!"

"Marchioness?--near Humberston? The Marchioness of Montfort, I suppose?"

"Likely enough; I don't remember. All I know is, that two years ago my
old Clown was my tyrannical manager; and being in that capacity, and this
world being made for Caesar, which is a shame, sir, he said to me, with a
sneer, 'Old Gentleman Waife, whom you used to bully, and his Juliet
Araminta, are in clover!' And the mocking varlet went on to unfold a
tale to the effect, that when he had last visited Humberston, in the
race-week, a young tradesman, who was courting the Columbine, whose young
idea I myself taught to shoot on the light fantastic toe, treated that
Columbine, and one of her sister train (being, indeed, her aunt, who has
since come out at the Surrey in Desdemona) to a picnic in a fine park.
(That's discipline!--ha, ha!) And there, sir, Columbine and her aunt saw
Waife on the other side of a stream by which they sate carousing."

"The Clown perhaps said it to spite you."

"Columbine herself confirmed his tale, and said that on returning to the