CLAUDIO She did, indeed.
DON PEDRO How, how, pray you? You amaze me: I would have I
thought her spirit had been invincible against all
assaults of affection.
LEONATO I would have sworn it had, my lord; especially
against Benedick.
BENEDICK I should think this a gull, but that the
white-bearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot,
sure, hide himself in such reverence.
CLAUDIO He hath ta'en the infection: hold it up.
DON PEDRO Hath she made her affection known to Benedick?
LEONATO No; and swears she never will: that's her torment.
CLAUDIO 'Tis true, indeed; so your daughter says: 'Shall
I,' says she, 'that have so oft encountered him
with scorn, write to him that I love him?'
LEONATO This says she now when she is beginning to write to
him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and
there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a
sheet of paper: my daughter tells us all.
CLAUDIO Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a
pretty jest your daughter told us of.
LEONATO O, when she had writ it and was reading it over, she
found Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet?
CLAUDIO That.
LEONATO O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence;
railed at herself, that she should be so immodest
to write to one that she knew would flout her; 'I
measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I
should flout him, if he writ to me; yea, though I
love him, I should.
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