FORE. Mercy on us, what do these lunacies portend? Alas! he’s mad, child, stark wild.
MISS. What, and must not I have e’er a husband, then? What, must I go to bed to nurse again, and be a child as long as she’s an old woman? Indeed but I won’t. For now my mind is set upon a man, I will have a man some way or other. Oh, methinks I’m sick when I think of a man; and if I can’t have one, I would go to sleep all my life: for when I’m awake it makes me wish and long, and I don’t know for what. And I’d rather be always asleep than sick with thinking.
FORE. Oh, fearful! I think the girl’s influenced too. Hussy, you shall have a rod.
MISS. A fiddle of a rod, I’ll have a husband; and if you won’t get me one, I’ll get one for myself. I’ll marry our Robin the butler; he says he loves me, and he’s a handsome man, and shall be my husband: I warrant he’ll be my husband, and thank me too, for he told me so.
SCENE VII.
[To them] Scandal, Mrs. Foresight, and Nurse.
FORE. Did he so? I’ll dispatch him for’t presently. Rogue! O nurse, come hither.
NURSE. What is your worship’s pleasure?
FORE. Here, take your young mistress and lock her up presently, till farther orders from me. Not a word, Hussy; do what I bid you, no reply, away. And bid Robin make ready to give an account of his plate and linen, d’ye hear: begone when I bid you.
MRS. FORE. What’s the matter, husband?