return, would you not tell her that you could not love, and must not she be content with this answer?" But Orsino would not admit of this reasoning, for he denied that it was possible for any woman to love as he did. He said, no woman's heart was bio; enouo;h to hold so much love, and therefore it was unfair to compare the love of any lady for him, to his love for Olivia. Now though Viola had the utmost deference for the duke's opinions, she could not help thinking this was not quite true, for she thought her heart had full as much love in it as Orsino's had; and she said, "Ah, but I know, my lord."——"What do you know, Cesario?" said Orsino. "Too well I know," replied Viola, "what love women may owe to men. They are as true of heart as we are. My father had a daughter loved a man, as I perhaps, were I a woman, should love your lordship." "And what is her history?" said Orsino. "A blank, my lord," replied Viola: "she never told her love, but let concealment, like a worm in the bud, prey on her damask cheek. She pined in thought, and with a green and yellow melancholy, she sat like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief." The duke inquired if this lady died of her love, but to this question Viola returned an evasive answer; as probably she had feigned the story, to speak words expressive of the secret love and silent grief she suffered for Orsino.
While they were talking, a gentleman entered whom the duke had. sent to Olivia, and he said, "So please you, my lord, I might not be admitted to the lady, but by her handmaid she returned you this answer: Until seven years hence, the element
