Three days lay Romeo and Juliet receiving their guests in the vault of
the Capulets, with that strange smile of welcome for all who came.
Three days the world worshipped the love it could not understand, but
still came dense and denser throngs to worship. For the news of the
wonderful flower that had blossomed in Verona had gone far and wide, and
travellers from distant cities kept pouring in to look at those strange
young lovers, who had deemed the world well lost so that they might
leave it together.

Then the governor of the city decreed, as the time drew near when the
two lovers must be left to their peace, and it was ill that any should
lose the sight of this marvel, that on the fourth day they should be
carried through the streets in the eyes of all the people, and then be
buried together in the vault of the Capulets--for by this burial in the
same tomb, says the old chronicler who was first honoured with the
telling of their sweet story, the governor hoped to bring about a peace
between the Montagues and Capulets, at least for a little while.

Meanwhile, though Verona was a city of many trades and professions, and
love and death were idle things, yet was there little said of business
all these days, and little else done but talk of the two lovers, of
whom, indeed, it was true, as it has seldom been true out of Holy Writ,
that death was swallowed up in victory. During these days also there
stole a strange sweetness over the city, as though the very spirit of
love had nested there, and was filling the air with its soft
breathing--as when in the first days of spring the birds sing so sweetly
that broken hearts must hide away, and hard hearts grow a little kind.
Men once more spoke kindly to their wives, and even coarse faces wore a
gentle light,--just as sometimes at evening the setting sun will turn to