"God keep your ladyship still in that mind," retorts Benedick, "so some gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face." "Scratching could not make it worse, an' 'twere such a face as yours were." "Well, niece," says the uncle Leonato by and by, "I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband." "Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust, to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none; Adam's sons are my brethren, and truly I hold it a sin to match in my kindred." And later when they press her she replies:-- "He that hath a beard is more than a youth; and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a man I am not for him." Don Pedro, the Prince of Arragon, sportively offers himself. "Will you have me, lady?" "No, my lord, unless I might have another for working-days; your grace is too costly to wear every day." But, fearing that she has been guilty of an impertinence, she gently though still pertly excuses herself:-- "But I beseech your grace, pardon me; I was born to speak all mirth, and no matter." "Out of question you were born in a merry hour!" "No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but, then, there was a star danced, and under that was I born." "By my troth!" exclaims the Prince, wholly charmed, "a pleasant-spirited lady!" Which was the opinion of all, both on the stage and off. Esther seemed to have forgotten the danger she had run, the emotion she had experienced; or, rather, this danger and emotion lent to her eyes and voice a lively, incisive charm of gayety and extraordinary audacity. She was the very embodiment of that wit "quick as the greyhound's mouth," which forms the motive of the play. The quips and cranks of the poet seemed born upon her lips with the freedom and supreme grace of improvisation, and if here and there there occur certain rather weak or coarse sallies, she allowed the audience no time to perceive them. It was a rain, a very hail-storm which fell upon the heads of Benedick, Leonato, and Don Pedro, mixed with blinding lightning. With a glance of the eye she addressed her most trenchant words to Mowbray, whom she descried standing at the back of the Prince of Wales's chair. But it was surely no longer against him that she defended herself, since she felt herself assailed by every one in the theatre. She pitted herself against the game with elation. She no longer played a part, but was herself; she was no exceptional creature, but a young English girl of all times, who accosts love with a mocking air, though with a beating heart, with defiance upon her lips, backed by a pretty, mutinous insolence and a belligerent effervescence of words. Upon this battlefield of love, like her brothers in veritable combats, she had no wish to bite the dust. Though vanquished, she knows it not.