Enter Mrs Overdon, and her Daughter Prue.
Mrs Over. Ask blessing, Prue: He is the best father you ever had.
Aldo. Bless thee, and make thee a substantial, thriving whore. Have your mother in your eye, Prue; it is good to follow good example. How old are you, Prue? Hold up your head, child.
Pru. Going o'my sixteen, father Aldo.
Aldo. And you have been initiated but these two years: Loss of time, loss of precious time! Mrs Overdon, how much have you made of Prue, since she has been man's meat?
Mrs Over. A very small matter, by my troth; considering the charges I have been at in her education: Poor Prue was born under an unlucky planet; I despair of a coach for her. Her first maiden-head brought me in but little, the weather-beaten old knight, that bought her of me, beat down the price so low. I held her at an hundred guineas, and he bid ten; and higher than thirty would not rise.
Aldo. A pox of his unlucky handsel! He can but fumble, and will not pay neither.
Pru. Hang him; I could never endure him, father: 071 He is the filthiest old goat; and then he comes every day to our house, and eats out his thirty guineas; and at three months end, he threw me off.
Mrs Over. And since then, the poor child has dwindled, and dwindled away. Her next maiden-head brought me but ten; and from ten she fell to five; and at last to a single guinea: She has no luck to keeping; they all leave her, the more my sorrow.
Aldo. We must get her a husband then in the city; they bite rarely at a stale whore at this end of the town, new furbished up in a tawdry manteau.