you!  A judicious friend
Is better than a zealous: you are both!
I see you’ll plead my cause as ’twere your own;
Then stay in town, and win your neighbour for me;
Make me the envy of a score of men
That die for her as I do.  Make her mine,
And when the last “Amen!” declares complete
The mystic tying of the holy knot,
And ’fore the priest a blushing wife she stands,
Be thine the right to claim the second kiss
She pays for change from maidenhood to wifehood.

[Goes out.]

Wild.  Take that thyself!  The first be mine, or none!
A man in love with neighbour Constance!  Never
Dreamed I that such a thing could come to pass!
Such person, such endowments, such a soul!
I never thought to ask myself before
If she were man or woman!  Suitors, too,
Dying for her!  I’ll e’en make one among ’em!
Woo her to go to church along with him,
And for my pains the privilege to take
The second kiss?  I’ll take the second kiss,
And first one too—and last!  No man shall touch
Her lips but me.  I’ll massacre the man
That looks upon her!  Yet what chance have I
With lovers of the town, whose study ’tis
To please your lady belles!—who dress, walk, talk,
To hit their tastes—what chance, a country squire
Like me?  Yet your true fair, I have heard, prefers
The man before his coat at any time;
And such a one may neighbour Constance be.
I’ll show a limb with any of them!  Silks
I’ll wear, nor keep my legs in cases more.
I’ll learn to dance town-dances, and frequent
Their concerts!  Die away at melting strains,
Or seem to do so—far the easier thing,
And as effective quite; leave naught undone
To conquer neighbour Constance.

[Enter Lash.]

Lash.  Sir.

Wild.  Well, sir?

Lash.  So please you, sir, your horse is at the door.

Wild.  Unsaddle him again and put him up.
And, hark you, get a tailor for me, sir—
The rarest can be found.

Lash.  The man’s below, sir,
That owns the mare your worship thought to buy.

Wild.  Tell him I do not want her, sir.

Lash.  I vow
You will not find her like in Lincolnshire.

Wild.  Go to!  She’s spavined.

Lash.  Sir!

Wild.  Touched in the wind.

Lash.  I trust my master be not touched in the head!
I vow, a faultless beast!  [Aside.]

Wild.  I want her not,
And that’s your answer.  Go to the hosier’s, sir,
And bid him send me samples of his gear,
Of twenty different kinds.

Lash.  I will, sir.—Sir!

Wild.  Well, sir.

Lash.  Squire Brush’s huntsman’s here, and says
His master’s kennel is for sale.

Wild.  The dogs
Are only fit for hanging!—

Lash.  Finer bred—

Wild.  Sirrah, if more to me thou talkest of dogs,
Horses, or aught that to thy craft belongs,
Thou mayst go hang for me!—A cordwainer
Go fetch me straight—the choicest in the town.
Away, sir!  Do thy errands smart and well
As thou canst crack thy whip!  [Lash goes out.]
Dear neighbour Constance,
I’ll give up horses, dogs, and all for thee!

[Goes out.]

SCENE II.

[Enter Widow Green and Lydia.]

W. Green.  Lydia, my gloves.  If Master Waller calls,
I shall be in at three; and say the same
To old Sir William Fondlove.  Tarry yet!—
What progress, think you, make I in the heart
Of fair young Master Waller?  Gods, my girl,
It is a heart to win and man as well!
How speed I, think you?  Didst, as I desired,
Detain him in my absence when he called,
And, without seeming, sound him touching me?

Lydia.  Yes.

W. Green.  And effects he me, or not?  How guess you?
What said he of me?  Looked he balked, or not,
To find me not at home?  Inquired he when
I would be back, as much he longed to see me?
What did he—said he?  Come!—Is he in love,
Or like to fall into it?  Goes well my game,
Or shall I have my labour for my pains?

Lydia.  I think he is in love.—O poor evasion!
O to love truth, and yet not dare to speak it!  [Aside.]

W. Green.  You think he is in love—I’m sure of it.
As well have asked you has he eyes and ears,
And brain and heart to use them?  Maids do throw
Trick after trick away, but widows know
To play their cards!  How am I looking, Lydia?

Lydia.  E’en as you ever look.

W. Green.  Handsome, my girl?
Eh?  Clear in my complexion?  Eh?—brimful
Of spirits? not too much of me, nor yet
Too little?—Eh?—A woman worth a man?
Look at me, Lydia!  Would you credit, girl,
I was a scarecrow before marriage?

Lydia.  Nay!—

W. Green.  Girl, but I tell thee “yea.”  That gown of thine—
And thou art slender—would have hung about me!
There’s something of me now! good sooth, enough!
Lydia, I’m quite contented with myself;
I’m just the thing, methinks, a widow should be.
So, Master Waller, you believe, affects me?
But, Lydia, not enough to hook the fish;
To prove the angler’s skill, it must be caught;
And lovers, Lydia, like the angler’s prey—
Which, when he draws it near the landing-place,
Takes warning and runs out the slender line,
And with a spring perchance jerks off the hold
When we do fish for them, and hook, and think
They are all but in the creel, will make the dart
That sets them free to roam the flood again!

Lydia.  Is’t so?

W. Green.  Thou’lt find it so, or better luck
Than many another maid!  Now mark me, Lydia:
Sir William Fondlove fancies me.  ’Tis well!
I do not fancy him!  What should I do
With an old man?—Attend upon the gout,
Or the rheumatics!  Wrap me in the cloud
Of a darkened chamber—’stead of shining out,
The sun of balls, and routs, and gala-days!
But he affects me, Lydia; so he may!
Now take a lesson from me—Jealousy
Had better go with open, naked breast,
Than pin or button with a gem.  Less plague,
The plague-spot; that doth speedy make an end
One way or t’other, girl.  Yet, never love
Was warm without a spice of jealousy.
Thy lesson now—Sir William Fondlove’s rich,
And riches, though they’re paste, yet being many,
The jewel love we often cast away for.
I use him but for Master Waller’s sake.
Dost like my policy?

Lydia.  You will not chide me?

W. Green.  Nay, Lydia, I do like to hear thy thoughts,
They are such novel things—plants that do thrive
With country air!  I marvel still they flower,
And thou so long in town!  Speak freely, girl!

Lydia.  I cannot think love thrives by artifice,
Or can disguise its mood, and show its face.
I would not hide one portion of my heart
Where I did give it and did feel ’twas right,
Nor feign a wish, to mask a wish that was,
Howe’er to keep it.  For no cause except
Myself would I be loved.  What were’t to me,
My lover valued me the more, the more
He saw me comely in another’s eyes,
When his alone the vision I would show
Becoming to?  I have sought the reason oft,
They paint Love as a child, and still have thought,
It was because true love, like infancy,
Frank, trusting, unobservant of its mood,
Doth show its wish at once, and means no more!

W. Green.  Thou’lt find out better when thy time doth come.
Now