FRANCES. Good sir, be content, A lawyer should make all things right and straight; All lies but in the handling; I may prove A wife that shall deserve your best of love. OLIVER. Take her, Throat, you have a better jewel now Than ever. Kiss her, kiss her, man; all friends. LADY SOM. Yet, in this happy close, I still have lost My only daughter. W. SMALL. Where's thy page, Boutcher? _Enter_ CONSTANTIA. CON. Here I present the page: and that all doubt May here be cleared, here in my proper shape, That all your joys may be complete and full, I must make one. With pardon, gentle mother, Since all our friends so happily are met, Here will I choose a husband: this be the man Whom, since I left your house in shape of page, I still have followed. W. SMALL. Foot, would I had known so much, I would have been bold to have lain with your page. CON. Say, am I welcome? BOUT. As is my life and soul. LADY SOM. Heaven give you joy, Since all so well succeeds, take my consent. W. SMALL. Then are we all pair'd: I and my lass; You and your wife; the lawyer and his wench; And, father, fall you aboard of the widow: But then my brother---- T. SMALL. Faith, I am a fool. W. SMALL. That's all one: if God had not made Some elder brothers fools, how should witty Younger brothers be maintain'd? Strike up, music; let's have an old song: Since all my tricks have found so good success, We'll sing, dance, dice, and drink down heaviness. FOOTNOTES: [429] [Meaning that she will throw something on his head.] [430] [Edits., _Do not, I know you cannot._] [431] Sword. [432] [Edits., _To._] [433] _The shaking of the sheets_ was a dance. A _double-entendre_ is designed here, and the same is often to be found in old plays. See "How to choose a good Wife from a bad," 1602; Massinger's "City Madam," act ii. sc. 1; "A Woman kill'd with Kindness," act i. sc. 1. [434] The copy of 1636 makes nonsense of these two lines, thus-- "And then _lie_ as quiet as a sucking lamb, Close by the widow _will I rest_ all night:" and thus it stood till now.--_Collier._ [435] It was formerly a custom to strew herbs and flowers from the house where persons betrothed resided to the church where they were married. See ["Popular Antiquities of Great Britain," ii. 69, 70.]