t, you perform as much as he that cheated the very
lottery.
_Wood._ Ladies, I am sorry this should happen to you for my sake: She
is in a raging fit, you see; 'tis best withdrawing, till the spirit of
prophecy has left her.
_Trick._ I'll take shelter in my chamber,--whither, I hope, he'll have
the grace to follow me. [_Aside._
_Mrs Brain._ And now I think on't, I have some letters to dispatch.
[_Exit_ TRICK. _and_ MRS BRAIN. _severally._
_Pleas._ Now, good John among the maids, how mean you to bestow your
time? Away to your study, I advise you; invoke your muses, and make
madrigals upon absence.
_Wood._ I would go to China, or Japan, to be rid of that impetuous
clack of yours. Farewell, thou legion of tongues in one woman!
_Pleas._ Will you not stay, sir? it may be I have a little business
with you.
_Wood._ Yes, the second part of the same tune! Strike by yourself,
sweet larum; you're true bell-metal I warrant you. [_Exit._
_Pleas._ This spitefulness of mine will be my ruin: To rail them off,
was well enough; but to talk him away, too! O tongue, tongue, thou
wert given for a curse to all our sex!
_Enter_ JUDITH.
_Jud._ Madam, your mother would speak with you.
_Pleas._ I will not come; I'm mad, I think; I come immediately. Well,
I'll go in, and vent my passion, by railing at them, and him too.
[_Exit._
_Jud._ You may enter in safety, sir; the enemy's marched off.
_Re-enter_ WOODALL.
_Wood._ Nothing, but the love I bear thy mistress, could keep me in
the house with such a fury. When will the bright nymph appear?
_Jud._ Immediately; I hear her coming.
_Wood._ That I could find her coming, Mrs Judith!
_Enter_ MRS BRAINSICK.
You have made me languish in expectation, madam. Was it nothing, do
you think, to be so near a happiness, with violent desires, and to be
delayed?
_Mrs Brain._ Is it nothing, do you think, for a woman of honour, to
overcome the ties of virtue and reputation; to do that for you, which
I thought I should never have ventured for the sake of any man?
_Wood._ But my comfort is, that love has overcome. Your honour is, in
other words, but your good repute; and 'tis my part to take care of
that: for the fountain of a woman's honour is in the lover, as that of
the subject is in the king.
_Mrs Brain._ You had concluded well, if
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