Mrs. F. What boots it, if ’twere told?

Selby. Now, by our loves, And by my hopes of happier wedlocks, some day To be accomplish’d, give me his name!

Mrs. F. ’Tis no such serious matter.  It was—­Huntingdon.

Selby. How have three little syllables pluck’d from me
A world of countless hopes!—­ [Aside.
                              Evasive Widow.

Mrs. F. How, sir!—­I like not this. [Aside.

Selby. No, no, I meant
Nothing but good to thee.  That other woman,
How shall I call her but evasive, false,
And treacherous?—­by the trust I place in thee,
Tell me, and tell me truly, was the name
As you pronounced it?

Mrs. F. Huntingdon—­the name,
Which his paternal grandfather assumed,
Together with the estates of a remote
Kinsman:  but our high-spirited youth—­

Selby. Yes—­

Mrs. F. Disdaining
For sordid pelf to truck the family honors,
At risk of the lost estates, resumed the old style,
And answer’d only to the name of—­

Selby. What—­

Mrs. F. Of Halford—­

Selby. A Huntingdon to Halford changed so soon! 
Why, then I see, a witch hath her good spells,
As well as bad, and can by a backward charm
Unruffle the foul storm she has just been raising.
                                   [Aside.  He makes the signal.

My frank, fair-spoken Widow! let this kiss,
Which yet aspires no higher, speak my thanks,
Till I can think on greater.

          Enter LUCY and KATHERINE.

Mrs. F. Interrupted!

Selby. My sister here! and see, where with her comes
My serpent gliding in an angel’s form,
To taint the new-born Eden of our joys. 
Why should we fear them?  We’ll not stir a foot,
Nor coy it for their pleasures. [He courts the Widow.

Lucy (to Katherine). This your free,
And sweet ingenuous confession, binds me
Forever to you; and it shall go hard,
But it shall fetch you back your husband’s heart,
That now seems blindly straying; or, at worst,
In me you have still a sister.—­Some wives, brother,
Would think it strange to catch their husbands thus
Alone with a trim widow; but your Katherine
Is arm’d, I think, with patience.

Kath. I am fortified
With knowledge of self-faults to endure worse wrongs,
If they be wrongs, than he can lay upon me;
Even to look on, and see him sue in earnest,
As now I think he does it but in seeming,
To that ill woman.

Selby. Good words, gentle Kate,
And not a thought irreverent of our Widow. 
Why, ’twere unmannerly at any time,
But most uncourteous on our wedding-day,
When we should show most hospitable.—­Some wine!
                                              [Wine is brought.