MRS. FRAMPTON
"Child," I was saying,
"If some wives had obtained a lot like yours,"
And then perhaps I sigh'd, "they would not sit
In corners moping, like to sullen moppets
That want their will, but dry their eyes, and look
Their cheerful husbands in the face," perhaps
I said, their Selby's, "with proportion'd looks
Of honest joy."

SELBY
You do suspect no jealousy?

MRS. FRAMPTON
What is his import? Whereto tends his speech? [_Aside._]
Of whom, of what, should she be jealous, sir?

SELBY
I do not know, but women have their fancies;
And underneath a cold indifference,
Or show of some distaste, husbands have mask'd
A growing fondness for a female friend,
Which the wife's eye was sharp enough to see
Before the friend had wit to find it out.
You do not quit us soon?

MRS. FRAMPTON
'Tis as I find
Your Katherine profits by my lessons, sir.--
Means this man honest? Is there no deceit? [_Aside_.]

SELBY
She cannot chuse.--Well, well, I have been thinking,
And if the matter were to do again--

MRS. FRAMPTON
What matter, sir?

SELBY
This idle bond of wedlock;
These sour-sweet briars, fetters of harsh silk;
I might have made, I do not say a better,
But a more fit choice in a wife.

MRS. FRAMPTON
The parch'd ground,
In hottest Julys, drinks not in the showers
More greedily than I his words! [_Aside_.]

SELBY
My humour
Is to be frank and jovial; and that man
Affects me best, who most reflects me in
My most free temper.

MRS. FRAMPTON
Were you free to chuse,
As jestingly I'll put the supposition,
Without a thought reflecting on your Katherine,
What sort of woman would you make your choice?

SELBY
I like your humour, and will meet your jest.
She should be one about my Katherine's age;
But not so old, by some ten years, in gravity.
One that would meet my mirth, sometimes outrun it;
No puling, pining moppet, as you said,
Nor moping maid, that I must still be teaching
The freedoms of a wife all her life after:
But one, that, having worn the chain before,
(And worn it lightly, as report gave out,)
Enfranchised from it by her poor fool's deat