第59章 SCENE XIV.

MRS FRAIL, MRS FORESIGHT.

MRS FRAIL. O sister, had you come a minute sooner, you would have seen the resolution of a lover: --honest Tar and I are parted;--and with the same indifference that we met. O' my life I am half vexed at the insensibility of a brute that I despised.

MRS FORE. What then, he bore it most heroically?

MRS FRAIL. Most tyrannically; for you see he has got the start of me, and I, the poor forsaken maid, am left complaining on the shore.

But I'll tell you a hint that he has given me: Sir Sampson is enraged, and talks desperately of committing matrimony himself. If he has a mind to throw himself away, he can't do it more effectually than upon me, if we could bring it about.

MRS FORE. Oh, hang him, old fox, he's too cunning; besides, he hates both you and me. But I have a project in my head for you, and I have gone a good way towards it. I have almost made a bargain with Jeremy, Valentine's man, to sell his master to us.

MRS FRAIL. Sell him? How?

MRS FORE. Valentine raves upon Angelica, and took me for her, and Jeremy says will take anybody for her that he imposes on him. Now, I have promised him mountains, if in one of his mad fits he will bring you to him in her stead, and get you married together and put to bed together; and after consummation, girl, there's no revoking.

And if he should recover his senses, he'll be glad at least to make you a good settlement. Here they come: stand aside a little, and tell me how you like the design.