Scene II

Parmeno alone.

It were not good

That I should follow him into the house:

For all our family are odious to them.

That’s plain from their denying Sostrata

Admittance yesterday.—And if by chance

Her illness should increase (which Heav’n forbid,

For my poor master’s sake!), they’ll cry directly,

“Sostrata’s servant came into the house:”

Swear,—“that I brought the plague along with me,

Put all their lives in danger, and increas’d

Philumena’s distemper.”—By which means

My mistress will be blam’d, and I be beaten.