my wife; and of the two, I had rather find my sister too forward than my wife. I expected no other from her free education, as she calls it, and her passion for the town. Well, wife and sister are names which make us expect love and duty, pleasure and comfort; but we find ’em plagues and torments, and are equally, though differently, troublesome to their keeper; for we have as much ado to get people to lie with our sisters as to keep ’em from lying with our wives.

Re-enter Mrs. Pinchwife masked, and in hoods and scarfs, and a night-gown and petticoat of Alithea’s. What, are you come, sister? let us go then.—But first, let me lock up my wife. Mrs. Margery, where are you?

Mrs. Pinch. Here, bud.

Pinch. Come hither, that I may lock you up: get you in.—[Locks the door.] Come, sister, where are you now? [Mrs. Pinchwife gives him her hand; but when he lets her go, she steals softly on to the other side of him, and is led away by him for his Sister, Alithea.

SCENE II.—Horner’s Lodging

Horner and Quack.

Quack. What, all alone? not so much as one of your cuckolde here, nor one of their wives! They use to take their turns with you, as if they were to watch you.

Horn. Yes, it often happens that a cuckold is but his wife’s spy, and is more upon family duty when he is with her gallant abroad, hindering his pleasure, than when he is at home with her playing the gallant. But the hardest duty a married woman imposes upon a lover is keeping her husband company always.

Quack. And his fondness wearies you almost as soon as hers.

Horn. A pox! keeping a cuckold company, after you have had his wife, is as tiresome as the company of a country squire to a witty fellow of the town, when he has got all his money.

Quack. And as at first a man makes a friend of the husband to get the wife, so at last you are fain to fall out with the wife to be rid of the husband.

Horn. Ay, most cuckold-makers are true courtiers; when once a poor man has cracked his credit for ’em, they can’t abide to come near him.

Quack. But at first, to draw him in, are so sweet, so kind, so dear! just as you are to Pinchwife. But what becomes of that intrigue with his wife?

Horn. A pox! he’s as surly as an alderman that has been bit; and since he’s so coy, his wife’s kindness is in vain, for she’s a silly innocent.

Quack. Did she not send you a letter by him?

Horn. Yes; but that’s a riddle I have not yet solved. Allow the poor creature to be willing, she is silly too, and he keeps her up so close—

Quack. Yes, so close, that he makes her but the more willing, and adds but revenge to her love; which two, when met, seldom fail of satisfying each other one way or other.

Horn. What! here’s the man we are talking of, I think.

Enter Pinchwife, leading in his Wife masked, muffled, and in her Sister’s gown. Pshaw!