lted lover
marrying.

"Ophelia wed!" murmured the bridegroom.

"Do you know the lady, dear?"

"Excellent well," replied Hamlet, turning to Juliet; "a most estimable
young person, the daughter of my father's chamberlain. She is rather
given to singing ballads of an elegiac nature," added the prince,
reflectingly, "but our madcap Romeo will cure her of that. Methinks I
see them now"--

"Oh, where, my lord?"

"In my mind's eye, Horatio, surrounded by their little ones--noble
youths and graceful maidens, in whom the impetuosity of the fiery Romeo
is tempered by the pensiveness of the fair Ophelia. I shall take it most
unkindly of them, love," toying with Juliet's fingers, "if they do not
name their first boy Hamlet."

It was just as my lord Hamlet finished speaking that the last horse-car
for Boston--providentially belated between Water-town and Mount
Auburn--swept round the curve of the track on which I was walking. The
amber glow of the car-lantern lighted up my figure in the gloom, the
driver gave a quick turn on the brake, and the conductor, making
a sudden dexterous clutch at the strap over his head, sounded the
death-knell of my fantasy as I stepped upon the rear platform.

End of Project Gutenberg's A Midnight Fantasy, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

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