an Frank's bold speech.
Every guest turned red, and pale, and red again, and looked at the other
as much as to say, "What right has any one but I to drink her? Lift
your glass, and I will dash it out of your hand;" but Frank, with sweet
effrontery, drank "The health of the Rose of Torridge, and a double
health to that worthy gentleman, whosoever he may be, whom she is fated
to honor with her love!"

"Well done, cunning Frank Leigh!" cried blunt Will Cary; "none of us
dare quarrel with you now, however much we may sulk at each other. For
there's none of us, I'll warrant, but thinks that she likes him the best
of all; and so we are bound to believe that you have drunk our healths
all round."

"And so I have: and what better thing can you do, gentlemen, than to
drink each other's healths all round likewise: and so show yourselves
true gentlemen, true Christians, ay, and true lovers? For what is love
(let me speak freely to you, gentlemen and guests), what is love, but
the very inspiration of that Deity whose name is Love? Be sure that not
without reason did the ancients feign Eros to be the eldest of the gods,
by whom the jarring elements of chaos were attuned into harmony and
order. How, then, shall lovers make him the father of strife? Shall
Psyche wed with Cupid, to bring forth a cockatrice's egg? or the soul be
filled with love, the likeness of the immortals, to burn with envy and
jealousy, division and distrust? True, the rose has its thorn: but it
leaves poison and stings to the nettle. Cupid has his arrow: but he
hurls no scorpions. Venus is awful when despised, as the daughters of
Proetus found: but her handmaids are the Graces, not the Furies. Surely
he who loves aright will not only find love lovely, but become himself
lovely also. I speak not to reprehend you, gentlemen; for to you (as
your piercing wits have already perceived, to judge by your honorable
blushes) my discourse tends; but to point you, if you will but permit
me, to that rock which I myself have, I know not by what Divine good
hap, attained; if, indeed, I have attained it, and am not about to be
washed off again by the next tide."

Frank's rapid and fantastic oratory, utterly unexpected as it was, had
as yet left their wits no time to set their tempers on fire; but when,
weak from his wounds, he paused for breath, there was a haughty
murmur from more than one young gentleman, who took his speech as
an impertinent interference with each man's rig