Ca. Yes, they do.

Eu. Then you may retire thither, if you find the Company grow troublesome; and while they are drinking and joking, you may entertain yourself with Christ your Spouse, praying, singing, and giving Thanks:  Your Father’s House will not defile you, and you will make it the more pure.

Ca. But it is a great Deal safer to be in Virgins Company.

Eu. I do not disapprove of a chaste Society:  Yet I would not have you delude yourself with false Imaginations.  When once you come to be throughly acquainted there, and see Things nearer Hand, perhaps Things won’t look with so good a Face as they did once.  They are not all Virgins that wear Vails; believe me.

Ca. Good Words, I beseech you.

Eu. Those are good Words that are true Words.  I never read of but one Virgin that was a Mother, i.e. the Virgin Mary, unless the Eulogy we appropriate to the Virgin be transferr’d to a great many to be call’d Virgins after Childbearing.

Ca. I abhor the Thoughts on’t.

Eu. Nay, and more than that, those Maids, I’ll assure you, do more than becomes Maids to do.

Ca. Ay! why so, pray?

Eu. Because there are more among ’em that imitate Sappho in Manners, than are like her in Wit.

Ca. I don’t very well understand you.

Eu. My dear Kitty, I therefore speak in Cypher that you may not understand me.

Ca. But my Mind runs strangely upon this Course of Life, and I have a strong Opinion that this Disposition comes from God, because it hath continu’d with me so many Years, and grows every Day stronger and stronger.

Eu. Your good Parents being so violently set against it, makes me suspect it.  If what you attempt were good, God would have inclined your Parents to favour the Motion.  But you have contracted this Affection from the gay Things you saw when you were a Child; the Tittle-tattles of the Nuns, and the Hankering you have after your old Companions, the external Pomp and specious Ceremonies, and the Importunities of the senseless Monks which hunt you to make a Proselyte of you, that they may tipple more largely.  They know your Father to be liberal and bountiful, and they’ll either give him an Invitation to them, because they know he’ll bring Wine enough with him to serve for ten lusty Soaks, or else they’ll come to him.  Therefore let me advise you to do nothing without your Parents Consent, whom God has appointed your Guardians.  God would have inspired their Minds too, if the Thing you were attempting were a religious Matter.

Ca. In this Matter it is Piety to contemn Father and Mother.