MRS. FRAMPTON
      ’Tis no such serious matter.  It was—­Huntingdon.

SELBY How have three little syllables pluck’d from me A world of countless hopes!—­ [Aside.] Evasive Widow.

      MRS. FRAMPTON
      How, Sir!  I like not this.
      [Aside.]

      SELBY
      No, no, I meant
      Nothing but good to thee.  That other woman,
      How shall I call her but evasive, false,
      And treacherous?—­by the trust I place in thee,
      Tell me, and tell me truly, was the name
      As you pronounced it?

      MRS. FRAMPTON
      Huntingdon—­the name,
      Which his paternal grandfather assumed,
      Together with the estates, of a remote
      Kinsman; but our high-spirited youth—­

      SELBY
      Yes—­

      MRS. FRAMPTON
      Disdaining
      For sordid pelf to truck the family honours,
      At risk of the lost estates, resumed the old style,
      And answer’d only to the name of—­

      SELBY
      What?

      MRS. FRAMPTON
      Of Halford—­

SELBY A Huntingdon to Halford changed so soon!  Why, then I see, a witch hath her good spells, As well as bad, and can by a backward charm Unruffle the foul storm she has just been raising. [Aside.] [He makes the signal.]

      My frank, fair spoken Widow! let this kiss,
      Which yet aspires no higher, speak my thanks,
      Till I can think on greater.

      Enter LUCY and KATHERINE.

      MRS. FRAMPTON
      Interrupted!

SELBY My sister here! and see, where with her comes My serpent gliding in an angel’s form, To taint the new-born Eden of our joys.  Why should we fear them?  We’ll not stir a foot, Nor coy it for their pleasures. [He courts the Widow.]

      LUCY (to Katherine.)

      This your free,
      And sweet ingenuous confession, binds me
      For ever to you; and it shall go hard,
      But it shall fetch you back your husband’s heart,
      That now seems blindly straying; or at worst,
      In me you have still a sister.—­Some wives, brother,
      Would think it strange to catch their husbands thus
      Alone with a trim widow; but your Katherine
      Is arm’d, I think, with patience.

      KATHERINE
      I am fortified
      With knowledge of self-faults to endure worse wrongs,
      If they be wrongs, than he can lay upon me;
      Even to look on, and see him sue in earnest,
      As now I think he does it but in seeming,
      To that ill woman.