Actus Quartus.  Scena Prima.

Enter Abigal sola.

Abigal. Alas poor Gentlewoman, to what a misery hath Age brought thee:  to what a scurvy Fortune!  Thou that hast been a Companion for Noblemen, and at the worst of those times for Gentlemen:  now like a broken Servingman, must beg for favour to those, that would have crawl’d like Pilgrims to my Chamber but for an Apparition of me.  You that be coming on, make much of fifteen, and so till five and twenty:  use your time with reverence, that your profits may arise:  it will not tarry with you, Ecce signum:  here was a face, but time that like a surfeit eats our youth, plague of his iron teeth, and draw ’em for’t, has been a little bolder here than welcome:  and now to say the truth, I am fit for no man.  Old men i’th’ house of fifty, call me Granum; and when they are drunk, e’ne then, when Jone and my Lady are all one, not one will do me reason.  My little Levite hath forsaken me, his silver sound of Cittern quite abolish[t], [h]is doleful hymns under my Chamber window, digested into tedious learning:  well fool, you leapt a Haddock when you left him:  he’s a clean man, and a good edifier, and twenty nobles is his state de claro, besides his pigs in posse.  To this good Homilist I have been ever stubborn, which God forgive me for, and mend my manners:  and Love, if ever thou hadst care of forty, of such a piece of lape ground, hear my prayer, and fire his zeal so far forth that my faults in this renued impression of my love may shew corrected to our gentle reader.

Enter Roger.

See how negligently he passes by me:  with what an Equipage Canonical, as though he had broken the heart of Bellarmine, or added something to the singing Brethren.  ’Tis scorn, I know it, and deserve it, Mr. Roger.

Rog. Fair Gentlewoman, my name is Roger.

Abig.  Then gentle Roger?

Rog.  Ungentle Abigal.

Abig.  Why M’r Roger will you set your wit to a weak womans?

Rog.  You are weak indeed:  for so the Poet sings.

Abig.  I do confess my weakness, sweet Sir Roger.

Rog.  Good my Ladies Gentlewoman, or my good Ladies Gentlewoman (this trope is lost to you now) leave your prating, you have a season of your first mother in ye:  and surely had the Devil been in love, he had been abused too:  go Dalilah, you make men fools, and wear Fig-breeches.

Abi.  Well, well, hard hearted man; dilate upon the weak infirmities of women:  these are fit texts, but once there was a time, would I had never seen those eyes, those eyes, those orient eyes.

Rog.  I they were pearls once with you.

Abi.  Saving your reverence Sir, so they are still.

Rog.  Nay, nay, I do beseech you leave your cogging, what they are, they are, they serve me without Spectacles I thank ’em.