a
buck-rabbit in coupling. [_Exeunt_ CAMILLO _and_ AURELIAN.

_Soph._ Daughters, the time of our devotion calls us.--All happiness
to your highness.

_Luc._ [_To_ HIPPOLITA.] Little thinks my venerable old love there,
that his mistress in masquerade is so near him. Now do I even long to
abuse that fop-gravity again.

_Hip._ Methinks, he looks on us.

_Luc._ Farewell, poor love; I am she, I am, for all my demure looks,
that treated thee so inhumanly last night.
[_She is going off, after_ SOPHRONIA.

_Duke._ [_following her._] Stay, lady; I would speak with you.

_Luc._ Ah! [_Shrieking._

_Soph._ How now, daughter? What's the meaning of that indecent noise
you make?

_Luc._ [_Aside._] If I speak to him, he will discover my voice, and
then I am ruined.

_Duke._ If your name be Lucretia, I have some business of concernment
with you.

_Luc._ [_To_ SOPHRONIA.] Dear madam, for heaven's sake make haste into
the cloister; the duke pursues me on some ill design.

_Soph._ [_To the_ DUKE.] 'Tis not permitted, sir, for maids, once
entered into religion, to hold discourses here of worldly things.

_Duke._ But my discourses are not worldly, madam;
I had a vision in the dead of night,
Which shewed me this fair virgin in my sleep,
And told me, that from her I should be taught
Where to bestow large alms, and great endowments,
On some near monastery.

_Soph._ Stay, Lucretia;
The holy vision's will must be obeyed. [_Exeunt_ SOPHRONIA _and Nuns._

_Luc._ [_Aside._] He does not know me, sure; and yet I fear religion
is the least of his business with me.

_Duke._ I see, madam, beauty will be beauty in any habit;
Though, I confess, the splendour of a court
Were a much fitter scene for yours, than is
A cloistered privacy.

_Luc._ [_counterfeiting her voice._]
The world has no temptations for a mind
So fixed and raised above it;
This humble cell contains and bounds my wishes:
My charity gives you my prayers, and that's
All my converse with human kind.

_Duke._ Since when, madam, have the world and you been upon these
equal terms of hostility? Time was, you have been better friends.

_Luc._ No doubt I have been vain, and sinful; but the remembrance of
those days cannot be pleasant to me now, and therefore, if you please,
do not refresh their memory.

_Duke._ Their memory! you speak as if they were ages past.

_Luc._ You thin