SCENE II.

_The Country Wench’s Lodging._

_Enter Country Wench and Father._

FA. Though I be poor, ’tis my glory to live honest. COUN. W. I prithee, do not leave me. FA. To be bawd! Hell has not such an office. I thought at first your mind had been preserv’d In virtue and in modesty of blood; That such a face had not been made to please Th’ unsettled appetites of several men; Those eyes turn’d up through prayer, not through lust: But you are wicked, and my thoughts unjust. COUN. W. Why, thou art an unreasonable fellow, i’faith. Do not all trades live by their ware, and yet called honest livers? do they not thrive best when they utter most, and make it away by the great?[1108] is not whole- sale the chiefest merchandise? do you think some merchants could keep their wives so brave[1109] but for their whole-sale? you’re foully deceived and[1110] you think so. FA. You are so glu’d to punishment and shame. Your words e’en deserve whipping. To bear the habit of a gentlewoman, And be in mind so distant! COUN. W. Why, you fool you, are not gentlewomen sinners? and there’s no courageous sinner amongst us but was a gentlewoman by the mother’s side, I warrant you: besides, we are not always bound to think those our fathers that marry our mothers, but those that lie with our mothers; and they may be gentlemen born, and born again for ought we know, you know.

FA. True: Corruption may well be generation’s first; We’re bad by nature, but by custom worst.

[_Exeunt._