Act 2 — SCENE.—Mrs. Selby's Chamber.

MRS. FRAMPTON, KATHERINE, working.

MRS. FRAMPTON I am thinking, child, how contrary our fates Have traced our lots through life. Another needle, This works untowardly. An heiress born To splendid prospects, at our common school I was as one above you all, not of you; Had my distinct prerogatives; my freedoms, Denied to you. Pray, listen—

KATHERINE I must hear What you are pleased to speak!—How my heart sinks here! [Aside.]

MRS. FRAMPTON My chamber to myself, my separate maid, My coach, and so forth.—Not that needle, simple one, With the great staring eye fit for a Cyclops! Mine own are not so blinded with their griefs But I could make a shift to thread a smaller. A cable or a camel might go through this, And never strain for the passage.

KATHERINE

I will fit you.— Intolerable tyranny! [Aside.]

MRS. FRAMPTON Quick, quick; You were not once so slack.—As I was saying, Not a young thing among ye, but observed me Above the mistress. Who but I was sought to In all your dangers, all your little difficulties, Your girlish scrapes? I was the scape-goat still, To fetch you off; kept all your secrets, some, Perhaps, since then—

KATHERINE No more of that, for mercy, If you'd not have me, sinking at your feet, Cleave the cold earth for comfort. [Kneels.]

MRS. FRAMPTON This to me? This posture to your friend had better suited The orphan Katherine in her humble school-days To the then rich heiress, than the wife of Selby, Of wealthy Mr. Selby, To the poor widow Frampton, sunk as she is. Come, come, 'Twas something, or 'twas nothing, that I said; I did not mean to fright you, sweetest bed-fellow! You once were so, but Selby now engrosses you. I'll make him give you up a night or so; In faith I will: that we may lie, and talk Old tricks of school-days over.

KATHERINE Hear me, madam—

MRS. FRAMPTON Not by that name. Your friend—

KATHERINE My truest friend, And saviour of my honour!

MRS. FRAMPTON This sounds better; You still shall find me such.

KATHERINE That you have graced Our poor house with your presence hitherto, Has been my greatest comfort, the sole solace Of my forlorn and hardly guess'd estate. You have been pleased To accept some trivial hospitalities, In part of payment of a long arrear I owe to you, no less than for my life.

MRS. FRAMPTON You speak my services too large.

KATHERINE Nay, less; For what an abject thing were life to me Without your silence on my dreadful secret! And I would wish the league we have renew'd Might be perpetual—

MRS. FRAMPTON Have a care, fine madam! [Aside.]

KATHERINE That one house still might hold us. But my husband Has shown himself of late—

MRS. FRAMPTON How Mistress Selby?

KATHERINE Not, not impatient. You misconstrue him. He honours, and he loves, nay, he must love The friend of his wife's youth. But there are moods In which—

MRS. FRAMPTON I understand you;—in which husbands, And wives that love, may wish to be alone, To nurse the tender fits of new-born dalliance, After a five years' wedlock.

KATHERINE Was that well Or charitably put? do these pale cheeks Proclaim a wanton blood? this wasting form Seem a fit theatre for Levity To play his love-tricks on; and act such follies, As even in Affection's first bland Moon Have less of grace than pardon in best wedlocks? I was about to say, that there are times, When the most frank and sociable man May surfeit on most loved society, Preferring loneness rather—

MRS. FRAMPTON To my company—

KATHERINE Ay, your's, or mine, or any one's. Nay, take Not this unto yourself. Even in the newness Of our first married loves 'twas sometimes so. For solitude, I have heard my Selby say, Is to the mind as rest to the corporal functions; And he would call it oft, the day's soft sleep.

MRS. FRAMPTON What is your drift? and whereto tends this speech, Rhetorically labour'd?

KATHERINE That you would Abstain but from our house a month, a week; I make request but for a single day.

MRS. FRAMPTON A month, a week, a day! A single hour In every week, and month, and the long year, And all the years to come! My footing here, Slipt once, recovers never. From the state Of gilded roofs, attendance, luxuries, Parks, gardens, sauntering walks, or wholesome rides, To the bare cottage on the withering moor, Where I myself am servant to myself, Or only waited on by blackest thoughts— I sink, if this be so. No; here I sit.

KATHERINE Then I am lost for ever! [Sinks at her feet—curtain drops.]