John.  Yet tell me, if I overact my mirth, (Being but a novice, I may fall into that error.) That were a sad indecency, you know.

Marg.  Nay, never fear. 
I will be mistress of your humors,
And you shall frown or smile by the book. 
And herein I shall be most peremptory,
Cry, “This shows well, but that inclines to levity;
This frown has too much of the Woodvil in it,
But that fine sunshine has redeem’d it quite.”

John.  How sweetly Margaret robs me of myself!

Marg.  To give you in your stead a better self! 
Such as you were, when these eyes first beheld
You mounted on your sprightly steed, White Margery,
Sir Rowland my father’s gift,
And all my maidens gave my heart for lost. 
I was a young thing then, being newly come
Home from my convent education, where
Seven years I had wasted in the bosom of France: 
Returning home true protestant, you call’d me
Your little heretic nun.  How timid-bashful
Did John salute his love, being newly seen! 
Sir Rowland term’d it a rare modesty,
And praised it in a youth.

John.  Now Margaret weeps herself.

         (A noise of bells heard.)

Marg.  Hark the bells, John.

John.  Those are the church-bells of St. Mary Ottery.

Marg.  I know it.

John.  St. Mary Ottery, my native village
In the sweet shire of Devon. 
Those are the bells.

Marg. Wilt go to church, John?

John. I have been there already.

Marg. How canst say thou hast been there already?  The bells are only now ringing for morning service, And hast thou been at church already?

John. I left my bed betimes, I could not sleep,
And when I rose, I look’d (as my custom is)
From my chamber window, where I can see the sun rise;
And the first object I discern’d
Was the glistering spire of St. Mary Ottery.

Marg. Well, John.

John. Then I remember’d ’twas the sabbath day. 
Immediately a wish arose in my mind,
To go to church and pray with Christian people. 
And then I check’d myself, and said to myself,
“Thou hast been a heathen, John, these two years past,
(Not having been at church in all that time,)
And is it fit, that now for the first time
Thou shouldst offend the eyes of Christian people
With a murderer’s presence in the house of prayer? 
Thou wouldst but discompose their pious thoughts,
And do thyself no good:  for how couldst thou pray,
With unwash’d hands, and lips unused to the offices?”
And then I at my own presumption smiled;
And then I wept that I should smile at all,
Having such cause of grief!  I wept outright: 
Tears like a river flooded all my face,
And I began to pray, and found I could pray;
And still I yearn’d to say my prayers in the