LADY W. What age would you desire To choose your wife of? DOT. Just as old as you are. LADY W. Well, servant, I believe you can dissemble. LADY C. Will't please you to draw near? Sir Argent stays Expecting within. FREE. We'll wait upon you. [_Exeunt._ _Manent_ BARNET, DOTTEREL. BAR. To what strange fortune, friend, are some men born, I mean by thee. Surely, when thou wert young, The fairies dandled thee. DOT. Why, prythee, Barnet? BAR. That ladies thus should doat upon thy person. Dost thou not see how soon the Lady Whimsey Is caught in love with thee? DOT. But is she, think'st thou? BAR. Is she! Come, thou perceiv'st it well enough; What else should make her court thee, and bestow Her favours openly? And such a lady! So full of wit as she is, too! Would she Betray the secrets of her heart so far, But that love plays the tyrant in her breast, And forces her? DOT. True, and, as thou say'st, Barnet, She's a brave, witty lady; and I love A wit with all my heart. What would she say If she should know me truly, that thus loves, And thinks I am but a poor younger brother? BAR. Why, still the greater is thy happiness: Thou may'st be sure she loves thee truly now, And not thy fortunes. DOT. Has she found me out, For all I sought to hide myself? BAR. The more Thy worth appears, the more her judgment's seen. O, 'tis a gallant lady! Well, she might Have cast her eye on me or Euphues; But 'twas not our good fortune! DOT. Do not despair; Some other woman may love thee as well: Come, thou hast worth, Barnet, as well as I. BAR. Nay, nay, abuse not your poor friends; but tell me, What dost thou think of young Artemia now? DOT. Of her! a foolish girl, a simple thing! She'd make a pretty wife for me! I confess I courted her; but she had not the wit To find out what I was, for all my talk. BAR. And that was strange she should not; but 'tis fate That governs marriages. DOT. Let her repent, And know what she hath lost, when 'tis too late. But dost thou think this gallant Lady Whimsey Will marry me? BAR. Mak'st thou a doubt of that? 'Tis thy own fault, boy, if thou hast her not. DOT. That I protest it shall not be; but, tell me, Shall I express my love to her in verse Or prose? BAR. In which you will. DOT. I am alike at both of them indeed. BAR. I know thou art. DOT. Come, let's go in. BAR. Thou long'st to see thy mistress? DOT. We'll drink her health in a crown'd cup,[15] my lad. [_Exeunt._ FOOTNOTES: [9] Richard Braithwaite printed precisely the same thought in 1621, in his "Times Curtaine Drawne"--