Aur. Do you not see your ruin inevitable?  Draw in a holy place! and in the presence of the Duke!

Mar. I do not like Camillo’s being here:  I must cut short the ceremony. [Whispers SOPHRONIA.

Soph. [To LAURA and VIOLETTA.] Come, fair cousins, we hope to make the cloisteral life so pleasing, that it may be an inducement to you to quit the wicked world for ever.

Vio. [Passing by CAMILLO.] Take that, and read it at your leisure.
                                      [Conveys a note into his hand.

Cam. A ticket, as I live, Aurelian.

Aur. Steal off, and be thankful:  if that be my Beatrix with Laura, she’s most confoundedly ugly.  If ever we had come to love-work, and a candle had been brought us, I had fallen back from that face, like a buck-rabbit in coupling. [Exeunt CAMILLO and AURELIAN.

Soph. Daughters, the time of our devotion calls us.—­All happiness to your highness.

Luc. [To HIPPOLITA.] Little thinks my venerable old love there, that his mistress in masquerade is so near him.  Now do I even long to abuse that fop-gravity again.

Hip. Methinks, he looks on us.

Luc. Farewell, poor love; I am she, I am, for all my demure looks, that treated thee so inhumanly last night.
                                 [She is going off, after SOPHRONIA.

Duke. [following her.] Stay, lady; I would speak with you.

Luc. Ah! [Shrieking.

Soph. How now, daughter?  What’s the meaning of that indecent noise you make?

Luc. [Aside.] If I speak to him, he will discover my voice, and then I am ruined.

Duke. If your name be Lucretia, I have some business of concernment with you.

Luc. [To SOPHRONIA.] Dear madam, for heaven’s sake make haste into the cloister; the duke pursues me on some ill design.

Soph. [To the DUKE.] ’Tis not permitted, sir, for maids, once entered into religion, to hold discourses here of worldly things.

Duke. But my discourses are not worldly, madam;
I had a vision in the dead of night,
Which shewed me this fair virgin in my sleep,
And told me, that from her I should be taught
Where to bestow large alms, and great endowments,
On some near monastery.

Soph. Stay, Lucretia; The holy vision’s will must be obeyed. [Exeunt SOPHRONIA and Nuns.

Luc. [Aside.] He does not know me, sure; and yet I fear religion is the least of his business with me.

Duke. I see, madam, beauty will be beauty in any habit; Though, I confess, the splendour of a court Were a much fitter scene for yours, than is A cloistered privacy.