NURSE. Wee’st heart, I know not, they’re none of ’em come home yet. Poor child, I warrant she’s fond o’ seeing the town. Marry, pray heaven they ha’ given her any dinner. Good lack-a-day, ha, ha, ha, Oh, strange! I’ll vow and swear now, ha, ha, ha, marry, and did you ever see the like! FORE. Why, how now, what’s the matter? NURSE. Pray heaven send your worship good luck, marry, and amen with all my heart, for you have put on one stocking with the wrong side outward. FORE. Ha, how? Faith and troth I’m glad of it; and so I have: that may be good luck in troth, in troth it may, very good luck. Nay, I have had some omens: I got out of bed backwards too this morning, without premeditation; pretty good that too; but then I stumbled coming down stairs, and met a weasel; bad omens those: some bad, some good, our lives are chequered. Mirth and sorrow, want and plenty, night and day, make up our time. But in troth I am pleased at my stocking; very well pleased at my stocking. Oh, here’s my niece! Sirrah, go tell Sir Sampson Legend I’ll wait on him if he’s at leisure:—’tis now three o’clock, a very good hour for business: Mercury governs this hour. SCENE III. ANGELICA, FORESIGHT, NURSE. ANG. Is it not a good hour for pleasure too, uncle? Pray lend me your coach; mine’s out of order. FORE. What, would you be gadding too? Sure, all females are mad to-day. It is of evil portent, and bodes mischief to the master of a family. I remember an old prophecy written by Messahalah the Arabian, and thus translated by a reverend Buckinghamshire bard:— ‘When housewives all the house forsake, And leave goodman to brew and bake, Withouten guile, then be it said, That house doth stand upon its head; And when the head is set in grond, Ne marl, if it be fruitful fond.’ Fruitful, the head fruitful, that bodes horns; the fruit of the head is horns. Dear niece, stay at home—for by the head of the house is meant the husband; the prophecy needs no explanation. ANG. Well, but I can neither make you a cuckold, uncle, by going abroad, nor secure you from being one by staying at home. FORE. Yes, yes; while there’s one woman left, the prophecy is not in full force. ANG. But my inclinations are in force; I have a mind to go abroad, and if you won’t lend me your coach, I’ll take a hackney or a chair, and leave you to erect a scheme, and find who’s in conjunction with your wife. Why don’t you keep her at home, if you’re jealous of her when she’s abroad? You know my aunt is a little retrograde (as you call it) in her nature. Uncle, I’m afraid you are not lord of the ascendant, ha, ha, ha! FORE. Well, Jill-flirt, you are very pert, and always ridiculing that celestial science.