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D. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she?

Claud. [Aside.] Bait the hook well, this fish will bite.

Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you—you heard my daughter tell you how.

Claud. She did indeed.

D. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me, I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection.

Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord, especially against Benedick.

Bene. I should think this a gull, but that the white- bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot sure hide himself in such reverence.

Claud. [Aside.] He hath ta’en th’ infection. Hold it up.

D. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick?

Leon. No, and swears she never will. That’s her torment.

Claud. ’Tis true indeed, so your daughter says. “Shall I,” says she, “that have so oft encount’red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?”

Leon. 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.