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　　SCENE.—The Library.

　　MR. SELBY. MRS. FRAMPTON.

　　SELBY

　　A fortunate encounter, Mistress Frampton.

　　My purpose was, if you could spare so much

　　From your sweet leisure, a few words in private.

　　MRS. FRAMPTON

　　What mean his alter'd tones? These looks to me,

　　Whose glances yet he has repell'd with coolness?

　　Is the wind changed? I'll veer about with it,

　　And meet him in all fashions. [Aside.]

　　All my leisure,

　　Feebly bestow'd upon my kind friends here,

　　Would not express a tithe of the obligements

　　I every hour incur.

　　SELBY

　　No more of that.—

　　I know not why, my wife hath lost of late

　　Much of her cheerful spirits.

　　MRS. FRAMPTON

　　It was my topic

　　To-day; and every day, and all day long,

　　I still am chiding with her. "Child," I said,

　　And said it pretty roundly—it may be

　　I was too peremptory—we elder school-fellows,

　　Presuming on the advantage of a year

　　Or two, which, in that tender time, seem'd much,

　　In after years, much like to elder sisters,

　　Are prone to keep the authoritative style,

　　When time has made the difference most ridiculous—

　　SELBY

　　The observation's shrewd.

　　MRS. FRAMPTON

　　"Child," I was saying,

　　"If some wives had obtained a lot like yours,"

　　And then perhaps I sigh'd, "they would not sit

　　In corners moping, like to sullen moppets

　　That want their will, but dry their eyes, and look

　　Their cheerful husbands in the face," perhaps

　　I said, their Selby's, "with proportion'd looks

　　Of honest joy."

　　SELBY

　　You do suspect no jealousy?

　　MRS. FRAMPTON

　　What is his import? Whereto tends his speech? [Aside.]

　　Of whom, of what, should she be jealous, sir?

　　SELBY

　　I do not know, but women have their fancies;

　　And underneath a cold indifference,

　　Or show of some distaste, husbands have mask'd

　　A growing fondness for a female friend,

　　Which the wife's eye was sharp enough to see

　　Before the friend had wit to find it out.

　　You do not quit us soon?

　　MRS. FRAMPTON

　　'Tis as I find

　　Your Katherine profits by my lessons, sir.—

　　Means this man honest? Is there no deceit? [Aside.]

　　SELBY

　　She cannot chuse.—Well, well, I have been thinking,

　　And if the matter were to do again—

　　MRS. FRAMPTON

　　What matter, sir?

　　SELBY

　　This idle bond of wedlock;

　　These sour-sweet briars, fetters of harsh silk;

　　I might have made, I do not say a better,

　　But a more fit choice in a wife.

　　MRS. FRAMPTON

　　The parch'd ground,

　　In hottest Julys, drinks not in the showers

　　More greedily than I his words! [Aside.]

　　SELBY

　　My humour

　　Is to be frank and jovial; and that man

　　Affects me best, who most reflects me in

　　My most free temper.

　　MRS. FRAMPTON

　　Were you free to chuse,

　　As jestingly I'll put the supposition,

　　Without a thought reflecting on your Katherine,

　　What sort of woman would you make your choice?

　　SELBY

　　I like your humour, and will meet your jest.

　　She should be one about my Katherine's age;

　　But not so old, by some ten years, in gravity.

　　One that would meet my mirth, sometimes outrun it;

　　No puling, pining moppet, as you said,

　　Nor moping maid, that I must still be teaching

　　The freedoms of a wife all her life after:

　　But one, that, having worn the chain before,

　　(And worn it lightly, as report gave out,)

　　Enfranchised from it by her poor fool's death,

　　Took it not so to heart that I need dread

　　To die myself, for fear a second time

　　To wet a widow's eye.

　　MRS. FRAMPTON

　　Some widows, sir,

　　Hearing you talk so wildly, would be apt

　　To put strange misconstruction on your words,

　　As aiming at a Turkish liberty,

　　Where the free husband hath his several mates,

　　His Penseroso, his Allegro wife,

　　To suit his sober, or his frolic fit.

　　SELBY

　　How judge you of that latitude?

　　MRS. FRAMPTON

　　As one,

　　In European customs bred, must judge. Had I

　　Been born a native of the liberal East,

　　I might have thought as they do. Yet I knew

　　A married man that took a second wife,

　　And (the man's circumstances duly weigh'd,

　　With all their bearings) the considerate world

　　Nor much approved, nor much condemn'd the deed.

　　SELBY

　　You move my wonder strangely. Pray, proceed.

　　MRS. FRAMPTON

　　An eye of wanton liking he had placed

　　Upon a Widow, who liked him again,

　　But stood on terms of honourable love,

　　And scrupled wronging his most virtuous wife—-

　　When to their ears a lucky rumour ran,

　　That this demure and saintly-seeming wife

　　Had a first husband living; with the which

　　Being question'd, she but faintly could deny.

　　"A priest indeed there was; some words had passed,

　　But scarce amounting to a marriage rite.

　　Her friend was absent; she supposed him dead;

　　And, seven years parted, both were free to chuse."

　　SELBY

　　What did the indignant husband? Did he not

　　With violent handlings stigmatize the cheek

　　Of the deceiving wife, who had entail'd

　　Shame on their innocent babe?

　　MRS. FRAMPTON

　　He neither tore

　　His wife's locks nor his own; but wisely weighing

　　His own offence with her's in equal poise,

　　And woman's weakness 'gainst the strength of man,

　　Came to a calm and witty compromise.

　　He coolly took his gay-faced widow home,

　　Made her his second wife; and still the first

　　Lost few or none of her prerogatives.

　　The servants call'd her mistress still; she kept

　　The keys, and had the total ordering

　　Of the house affairs; and, some slight toys excepted,

　　Was all a moderate wife would wish to be.

　　SELBY

　　A tale full of dramatic incident!—

　　And if a man should put it in a play,

　　How should he name the parties?

　　MRS. FRAMPTON

　　The man's name

　　Through time I have forgot—the widow's too;—

　　But his first wife's first name, her maiden one,

　　Was—not unlike to that your Katherine bore,

　　Before she took the honour'd style of Selby.

　　SELBY

　　A dangerous meaning in your riddle lurks.

　　One knot is yet unsolved; that told, this strange

　　And most mysterious drama ends. The name

　　Of that first husband—-

　　Enter Lucy.

　　MRS. FRAMPTON

　　Sir, your pardon—

　　The allegory fits your private ear.

　　Some half hour hence, in the garden's secret walk,

　　We shall have leisure. [Exit.]

　　SELBY

　　Sister, whence come you?

　　LUCY

　　From your poor Katherine's chamber, where she droops

　　In sad presageful thoughts, and sighs, and weeps,

　　And seems to pray by turns. At times she looks

　　As she would pour her secret in my bosom—-

　　Then starts, as I have seen her, at the mention

　　Of some immodest act. At her request

　　I left her on her knees.

　　SELBY

　　The fittest posture;

　　For great has been her fault to Heaven and me.

　　She married me, with a first husband living,

　　Or not known not to be so, which, in the judgment

　　Of any but indifferent honesty,

　　Must be esteem'd the same. The shallow Widow,

　　Caught by my art, under a riddling veil

　　Too thin to hide her meaning, hath confess'd all.

　　Your coming in broke off the conference,

　　When she was ripe to tell the fatal name,

　　That seals my wedded doom.

　　LUCY

　　Was she so forward

　　To pour her hateful meanings in your ear

　　At the first hint?

　　SELBY

　　Her newly flatter'd hopes

　　Array'd themselves at first in forms of doubt;

　　And with a female caution she stood off

　　Awhile, to read the meaning of my suit,

　　Which with such honest seeming I enforced,

　　That her cold scruples soon gave way; and now

　　She rests prepared, as mistress, or as wife,

　　To seize the place of her betrayed friend—

　　My much offending, but more suffering, Katherine.

　　LUCY

　　Into what labyrinth of fearful shapes

　　My simple project has conducted you—

　　Were but my wit as skilful to invent

　　A clue to lead you forth!—I call to mind

　　A letter, which your wife received from the Cape,

　　Soon after you were married, with some circumstances

　　Of mystery too.

　　SELBY

　　I well remember it.

　　That letter did confirm the truth (she said)

　　Of a friend's death, which she had long fear'd true,

　　But knew not for a fact. A youth of promise

　　She gave him out—a hot adventurous spirit—

　　That had set sail in quest of golden dreams,

　　And cities in the heart of Central Afric;

　　But named no names, nor did I care to press

　　My question further, in the passionate grief

　　She shew'd at the receipt. Might this be he?

　　LUCY

　　Tears were not all. When that first shower was past,

　　With clasped hands she raised her eyes to Heav'n,

　　As if in thankfulness for some escape,

　　Or strange deliverance, in the news implied,

　　Which sweeten'd that sad news.

　　SELBY

　　Something of that

　　I noted also—

　　LUCY

　　In her closet once,

　　Seeking some other trifle, I espied

　　A ring, in mournful characters deciphering

　　The death of "Robert Halford, aged two

　　And twenty." Brother, I am not given

　　To the confident use of wagers, which I hold

　　Unseemly in a woman's argument;

　　But I am strangely tempted now to risk

　　A thousand pounds out of my patrimony,

　　(And let my future husband look to it

　　If it be lost,) that this immodest Widow

　　Shall name the name that tallies with that ring.

　　SELBY

　　That wager lost, I should be rich indeed—

　　Rich in my rescued Kate—rich in my honour,

　　Which now was bankrupt. Sister, I accept

　　Your merry wager, with an aching heart

　　For very fear of winning. 'Tis the hour

　　That I should meet my Widow in the walk,

　　The south side of the garden. On some pretence

　　Lure forth my Wife that way, that she may witness

　　Our seeming courtship. Keep us still in sight,

　　Yourselves unseen; and by some sign I'll give,

　　(A finger held up, or a kerchief waved,)

　　You'll know your wager won—then break upon us,

　　As if by chance.

　　LUCY

　　I apprehend your meaning—

　　SELBY

　　And may you prove a true Cassandra here,

　　Though my poor acres smart for't, wagering sister.

　　[Exeunt.] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 4