“Pity is 'twasn't a lawyer. I hoard the thought that in case o' a fight 'twixt friends, the lawyers hurry up as well as the doctors in hope of a job,” said the miller. “Well, you've seen the world a deal for one so young, Nelly,” he added.
“And the concerts of singing and the assemblies and the beautiful polite dance which they call the minuet were as nought when placed alongside the plays in the playhouse,” cried Nelly.
The miller became grave.
“There be some who see a wicked evil in going to the playhouse,” he remarked, with a more casual air than was easy to him.
“That I have heard,” said the girl.
“They say that a part o' the playhouse is called the pit,” suggested the farmer. “Ay, I saw the name over the door at Plymouth, as it maybe did you, miller.”
“And some jumped at the notion that that pit led to another of a bottomless sort?” said the girl. “Well, I don't say that'twas the remembrance of that only that drew me to the playhouse. I did get something of a shock, I allow, when my young ladies bade me attend them to the playhouse one night, but while I sought a fair excuse for 'biding at our lodging on the Mall, I found myself inventing excuses for obeying my orders, and I must say that I found it a good deal easier doing this than t'other.”
“Ay, ay, I doubt not that—oh, no, we doubt it not,” cried the miller, shaking his head.
Richard Pritchard shook his head also.
“I found myself saying, 'How can the playhouse be a place of evil when my good young ladies, who are all that is virtuous, find it a pleasure to go?'”