[To them] NURSE.

FORE. Nurse, where's your young mistress?

NURSE. Wee'st heart, I know not, they're none of 'em come home yet. Poor child, I warrant she's fond o' seeing the town. Marry, pray heaven they ha' given her any dinner. Good lack-a-day, ha, ha, ha, Oh, strange! I'll vow and swear now, ha, ha, ha, marry, and did you ever see the like!

FORE. Why, how now, what's the matter?

NURSE. Pray heaven send your worship good luck, marry, and amen with all my heart, for you have put on one stocking with the wrong side outward.

FORE. Ha, how? Faith and troth I'm glad of it; and so I have: that may be good luck in troth, in troth it may, very good luck.

Nay, I have had some omens: I got out of bed backwards too this morning, without premeditation; pretty good that too; but then I stumbled coming down stairs, and met a weasel; bad omens those: some bad, some good, our lives are chequered. Mirth and sorrow, want and plenty, night and day, make up our time. But in troth I am pleased at my stocking; very well pleased at my stocking. Oh, here's my niece! Sirrah, go tell Sir Sampson Legend I'll wait on him if he's at leisure: --'tis now three o'clock, a very good hour for business: Mercury governs this hour.