Homeware
        To call the attendant fires to account
        Their elders forthwith sat . . .

Astraea: 
                  Is there no prayer
        Will move you, uncle Homeware?

Homeware: 
               God-daughter,
        This gentleman for you I have proposed
        As husband.

Astraea: 
        Arden! we are lost.

Arden: 
                  Astraea! 
        Support him!  Though I knew not his design,
        It plants me in mid-heaven.  Would it were
        Not you, but I to bear the shock.  My love! 
        We lost, you cry; you join me with you lost! 
        The truth leaps from your heart:  and let it shine
        To light us on our brilliant battle day
        And victory

Astraea: 
        Who betrayed me!

Homeware: 
               Who betrayed? 
        Your voice, your eyes, your veil, your knife and fork;
        Your tenfold worship of your widowhood;
        As he who sees he must yield up the flag,
        Hugs it oath-swearingly! straw-drowningly. 
        To be reasonable:  you sent this gentleman
        Referring him to me . . . .

Astraea: 
                    And that is false. 
        All’s false.  You have conspired.  I am disgraced. 
        But you will learn you have judged erroneously. 
        I am not the frail creature you conceive. 
        Between your vision of life’s aim, and theirs
        Who presently will question me, I cling
        To theirs as light:  and yours I deem a den
        Where souls can have no growth.

Homeware: 
        But when we touched
        The point of hand-pressings, ’twas rightly time
        To think of wedding ties?

Astraea: 
        Arden, adieu!

          (She rushes into house.)

Scene viii

Arden, Homeware

Arden: 
        Adieu! she said.  With her that word is final.

Homeware: 
        Strange! how young people blowing words like clouds
        On winds, now fair, now foul, and as they please
        Should still attach the Fates to them.

Arden: 
               She’s wounded
        Wounded to the quick!

Homeware: 
             The quicker our success:  for short
        Of that, these dames, who feel for everything,
        Feel nothing.

Arden: 
             Your intention has been kind,
        Dear sir, but you have ruined me.

Homeware: 
             Good-night. (Going.)

Arden: 
        Yet she said, we are lost, in her surprise.

Homeware: 
        Good morning. (Returning.)