Lovel. As all good Christians' should, I think.
Wood. I am sure, I could have loved her still within the limits of warrantable love.
Lovel. A kind of brotherly affection, I take it.
Wood. We should have made excellent man and wife in time.
Lovel. A good old couple, when the snows fell, to crowd about a sea-coal fire, and talk over old matters.
Wood. While each should feel, what neither cared to acknowledge, that stories oft-repeated may, at last, come to lose some of their grace by the repetition.
Lovel. Which both of you may yet live long enough to discover. For, take my word for it, Margaret is a bird that will come back to you without a lure.
Wood. Never, never, Lovel. Spite of my levity, with tears I confess it, she was a lady of most confirmed honor, of an unmatchable spirit, and determinate in all virtuous resolutions; not hasty to anticipate an affront, nor slow to feel, where just provocation was given.
Lovel. What made you neglect her, then?
Wood. Mere levity and youthfulness of blood, a malady incident to young men; physicians call it caprice. Nothing else. He that slighted her knew her value: and 'tis odds, but, for thy sake, Margaret, John will yet go to his grave a bachelor.