Bless us! if you should
take a vagary and make a rash resolution on your wedding night, to die a
maid, as she did; all were ruined, all my hopes lost. My heart would
break, and my estate would be left to the wide world, he? I hope you are
a better Christian than to think of living a nun, he? Answer me?

CYNT. I'm all obedience, sir, to your commands.

LADY PLYANT. [_Having read the letter_.] O dear Mr. Careless, I swear
he writes charmingly, and he looks charmingly, and he has charmed me, as
much as I have charmed him; and so I'll tell him in the wardrobe when
'tis dark. O criminy! I hope Sir Paul has not seen both letters. [_Puts
the wrong letter hastily up_, _and gives him her own_.] Sir Paul, here's
your letter; to-morrow morning I'll settle accounts to your advantage.

SCENE IV.

[_To them_] BRISK.

BRISK. Sir Paul, gads-bud, you're an uncivil person, let me tell you,
and all that; and I did not think it had been in you.

SIR PAUL. O law, what's the matter now? I hope you are not angry, Mr.
Brisk.

BRISK. Deuce take me, I believe you intend to marry your daughter
yourself; you're always brooding over her like an old hen, as if she were
not well hatched, egad, he.

SIR PAUL. Good strange! Mr. Brisk is such a merry facetious person, he,
he, he. No, no, I have done with her, I have done with her now.

BRISK. The fiddles have stayed this hour in the hall, and my Lord Froth
wants a partner, we can never begin without her.

SIR PAUL. Go, go child, go, get you gone and dance and be merry; I'll
come and look at you by and by. Where's my son Mellefont?

LADY PLYANT. I'll send him to them, I know where he is.

BRISK. Sir Paul, will you send Careless into the hall if you meet him?

SIR PAUL. I will, I will, I'll go and look for him on purpose.

SCENE V.

BRISK _alone_.

BRISK. So now they are all gone, and I have an opportunity to practice.
Ah! My dear Lady Froth, she's a most engaging creature, if she were not
so fond of that damned coxcombly lord of hers; and yet I am forced to
allow him wit too, to keep in with him. No matter, she's a woman of
parts, and, egad, parts will carry her. She said she would follow me
into the gallery. Now to make my approaches. Hem, hem! Ah ma-
[_bows_.] dam! Pox on't, why should I disparage my parts by thinking
what to say? None but dull rogues think; witty men, like rich fellows,
are always ready for all expenses; while your block