“So I do, with both mine ears, I do ensure you,” saith he, laughing.
“Now shall we meet with our demerits!” saith Father. “I pity thee not o’er much, Robin, for thou hast pulled it on thine own head.”
“My head will stand it,” quoth Sir Robert. “Now then, Mistress Joyce, prithee go to.”
Then quoth she, standing afore him—“I know well you can find me places diverse where Paul did bid wives that they should obey their husbands; and therein hold I with Paul. But I do defy you in this company to find me so much as one place wherein he biddeth women to obey men. And as for teaching, in his Epistle unto Titus, he plainly commandeth that the aged women shall teach the young ones. Moreover, I pray you, had not Philip the evangelist four virgin daughters, which did prophesy—to wit, preach? And did not Priscilla, no whit less than Aquila, instruct Apollos?”
“Mistress Joyce, the Queen’s Bench lost an eloquent advocate in you.”
“That’s a man all over!” quoth Aunt Joyce, with a little stamp of her foot. “When he cannot answer a woman’s reasoning, trust him to pay her a compliment, and reckon that shall serve her turn, poor fool, a deal better than the other.”
Sir Robert laughed as though he were rarely diverted.
“Dulcie may do your bidding an’ she list,” saith Aunt Joyce, “but trust me, so shall not I.”
“Mistress Joyce, therein will I trust you as fully as may be,” saith he, yet laughing. “Yet, I pray you, satisfy my curious fantasy, and tell me wherein you count Paul a friend to the women?”
“By reason that he told them plainly they were happier unwed,” saith Aunt Joyce: “and find me an other man that so reckoneth. Mark you, he saith not better, nor holier, nor wiser; but happier. That is it which most men will deny.”