Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin — Read

If he to thee no answer give, / I'll give to thee a sign; / A secret known to nought that live, / Save but to me and mine. / Gone to be married. / - Shakespeare

The whole of the next day was occupied by Doña Clara, to whom letter-writing was a rare, troublesome, and momentous task, in reading over and correcting her answer to her husband's letter; in which examination she found so much to correct, interline, alter, modify, expunge, and new-model, that finally Doña Clara's epistle very much resembled the work she was now employed in, namely, that of overcasting a piece of tapestry wrought by her grandmother, representing the meeting of king Solomon and the queen of Sheba. The new work, instead of repairing, made fearful havoc among the old; but Doña Clara went on, like her countryman at Mr. Peter's puppet-show, playing away (with her needle) in a perfect shower of backstrokes, fore-strokes, side-thrusts, and counter-thrusts, till not a figure in the tapestry could know himself again. The faded face of Solomon was garnished with a florid beard of scarlet silk (which Fra Jose at first told her she must rip out, as it made Solomon very little better than Judas) that made him resemble a boiled scallop. The farthingale of the queen of Sheba was expanded to an enormous hoop, of whose shrunk and pallid wearer it might be truly said, "Minima est pars sui. " The dog that, in the original tapestry, stood by the spurred and booted heel of the oriental monarch (who was clad in Spanish costume), by dint of a few tufts of black and yellow satin, was converted into a tiger -- a transformation which his grinning fangs rendered as authentic as heart could wish. And the parrot perched on the queen's shoulder, with the help of a train of green and gold, which the ignorant mistook for her majesty's mantle, proved a very passable peacock.