He is bigger than you.

BIA. Nay. But I'd never dare
Prod him which way to go!

BEA. Oh, la, I would!
Father, this ditch! This four-foot wall now, father!
And swim the brook beyond!

FRA. And is there naught
In which Bianca carries off the trophies?

BEA. [Ruefully.] Ay, there is tennis.

LAU. She wins from you at tennis?

BEA. She flays me, Laura. She drags me at her racket
Nine times around the court!

CAR. Why, how is that?--
She is not quicker.

BEA. Nay, but she grows cool
Whilst I grow hot, Carlotta, and freezes me
Ere I can melt her!

FRA. Is it true, Bianca?

BIA. 'Tis true I win from her.--Although not always.

GRA. What did I come here for?--I must go back
To where I started, and think of it again! [Exit Grazia.]

CAR. [Calling after her.]
Are you sure that you remember where you started?
--The woman hath a head like a sieve.

LAU. And yet,
You may be sure 'tis nothing more than the thimble
Of the matter she's forgotten. I never knew her
Mislay the thread or the needle of a thing.

BIA. We must study now, Beatrice, we really must.
We have not opened a book since yesterday.

LAU. La, as for me, I have not opened a book
Since yesteryear,--I'd rather open a vein!

CAR. Lessons,--troth, I remember well those lessons.
As for what I learned,--troth, that's a different matter,

FRA. 'Tis curious; the things that one remembers
Are foolish things. One does not know at all
Why one remembers them. There was a blackbird
With a broken foot somebody found and tamed
And named Euripides!--I can see it now.

CAR. Some of the silly rhymes we used to write
In the margins of our books, I still remember!

LAU. And eating sweets behind the covers of them!

FRA. And faces--faces--faces--and a little game
We used to play, all marching in a row
And singing!--I wish I were a child again.

BEA. You are not old, Francesca. You are very young.
And very beautiful!

FRA. I have been beautiful
Too many years to be so very young.

CAR. How now, Francesca! Would you have it said
You are enamoured of some beardless youth,
That so you see the wrinkles suddenly?
Have done! Have done!

BIA. Where shall we study, Bice?

BEA. Indoors. I cannot study out of doors.

[Exeunt Beatrice and Bianca.]

LAU. I vow I never knew a pair of lovers
More constant than those two.

CAR. A pair of lo