The scene is still at the widow’s house, and there again Sir Edward treads the stage. He cannot call on Mistress Bennett, but he can on Mistress Norton, who is his good friend, and the widow’s companion. From her and other household sources he hears that the widow is often sad and silent. If she breaks silence, it is only to remark that she will never marry at all. If Mrs. Norton commends Sir Edward the widow beshrews her companion, and protests that she hears so much of him all day long, she ‘can’t sleep all night for dreaming of him.’ Perhaps in one of those night visions she confounded Dering with Raven, for she dreamed that she ran away from him in her nightgear, out of the bedroom into her great parlour, whereby she caught catarrh. However, Sir Edward could not push his renewed suit to a happy termination. He sat for an hour with Mrs. Norton, talking of the widow, when he would have preferred to be talking with the widow herself. The latter was reported to be sad, in perplexity, and not likely to marry at all--just yet. This did not render Sir Edward’s suit desperate; but he wrote himself ‘fool’ for having asked for the return of his letters, when Newman told him that she had double services of plate, for town and country use, and that she had that glory of all proudly furnished houses of the olden time, beds, worth one hundred pounds the bed. Again, the scene shifts to the street before Sir George Croke’s house. The lady is about to descend from her chariot, and lo! the lover is there with a petition to be allowed to assist her. He does more, of course; he escorts her into the parlour, where the judge and many ladies are assembled. While general conversation went on, Sir Edward assiduously courted the widow from behind her chair. They talk in whispers, and are let alone. It is all prayer on one side, fencing prettily on the other. Prettily made accusations are humbly answered; she will not be pressed, not she. Her final reply should be made through her cousin, Cradock. ‘Pray,’ said Dering, ‘sweeten the answer with your own breath.’ And then Sir George drank to him in a glass of muscado while Sir Edward kissed the lady’s cheek. As the judge and the lover parted at the door, the former did not hesitate to declare his conviction that the widow was not to be won. ‘Won she must be,’ thought Sir Edward, ‘by one means or another.’ He rather stooped to find them. For instance, on a certain morning the widow’s four-year-old son was walking with his nursemaid, Susan, in Finsbury Fields; Susan was induced by a friend to take the boy to Sir Edward’s lodging, where Dering regaled him with cake, gave him an amber box, treated the maid to a glass of wine, hoped her mistress would not be angry with him, and put in the maid’s hand a five-shilling piece. ‘Lor, sir!’ exclaimed Susan, ‘I, and all the house, pray for you; and young Master Simon here does ever call you Father!’