MRS. FRAMPTON I understand you;--in which husbands, And wives that love, may wish to be alone, To nurse the tender fits of new-born dalliance, After a five years' wedlock. KATHERINE Was that well Or charitably put? do these pale cheeks Proclaim a wanton blood? this wasting form Seem a fit theatre for Levity To play his love-tricks on; and act such follies, As even in Affection's first bland Moon Have less of grace than pardon in best wedlocks? I was about to say, that there are times, When the most frank and sociable man May surfeit on most loved society, Preferring loneness rather-- MRS. FRAMPTON To my company-- KATHERINE Ay, your's, or mine, or any one's. Nay, take Not this unto yourself. Even in the newness Of our first married loves 'twas sometimes so. For solitude, I have heard my Selby say, Is to the mind as rest to the corporal functions; And he would call it oft, the _day's soft sleep._ MRS. FRAMPTON What is your drift? and whereto tends this speech, Rhetorically labour'd? KATHERINE That you would Abstain but from our house a month, a week; I make request but for a single day. MRS. FRAMPTON A month, a week, a day! A single hour In every week, and month, and the long year, And all the years to come! My footing here, Slipt once, recovers never. From the state Of gilded roofs, attendance, luxuries, Parks, gardens, sauntering walks, or wholesome rides, To the bare cottage on the withering moor, Where I myself am servant to myself, Or only waited on by blackest thoughts-- I sink, if this be so. No; here I sit. KATHERINE Then I am lost for ever! [_Sinks at her feet--curtain drops._] SCENE.--_An Apartment, contiguous to the last_. SELBY, _as if listening_.