Alex. The tide turns. [Aside.
Anc. Long time loved me!
Moll. Long ere you went to sea, I did.
I have lov'd you very long with all my heart.
Alex. Think of Bess, think of Bess; 'tis the better match.
Moll. You wicked brother! Indeed I love you better than all the Besses in the world; and if to-night I shift not into better fortunes, to-morrow I am made the miserablest wife marriage and misery can produce.
Alex. Is't possible?
Moll. Alas, sir! I am to marry an old man—a very old man, trust me. I was strange[83] in the nice timorous temper of a maid: I know 'tis against our sex to say we love; but rather than match with sixty and ten, threescore and ten times I would tell you so, and tell them ten times over, too. Truth loves not virtue with more of virtuous truth than I do you; and wonnot you love me then? [Weeps.
Anc. And lie with thee too, by this hand, wench. Come, let us have fair weather; thou art mine, and I am thine; there's an end o' th' business. This was but a trick, there's the projector.
Moll. O, you're a sweet brother!
Alex. And now thou'rt my sweet sister. I know the old man's gone to meet with an old wench that will meet with him,[84] or Jarvis has no juice in his brains; and while I, i' th' meantime, set another wheel agoing at the widow's, do thou soon—about ten, for 'tis to be very conveniently dark—meet this gentleman at the Nag's Head corner, just against Leadenhall. We lie in Lime Street; thither he shall carry thee, accommodate thee daintily all night with Mistress Dorothy, and marry i' th' morning very methodically.