Re-enter LUCY Lucy. Lud! Ma'am, here is Miss Melville. LYD. Is it possible! Enter JULIA LYD. My dearest Julia, how delighted am I!-[Embrace.] How unexpected was this happiness! JUL. True, Lydia and our pleasure is the greater. — But what has been the matter? — you were denied to me at first! 45 LYD. Ah, Julia, I have a thousand things to tell you! But first inform me what has conjur'd you to Bath? — Is 50 Sir Anthony here? JUL. He is we are arrived within this hour and I suppose he will be here to wait on Mrs. Malaprop as soon as he is dress'd. LYD. Then before we are interrupted, let me impart to you 55 some of my distress! I know your gentle nature will sympathize with me, tho' your prudence may condemn me! My letters have informed you of my whole connexion with Beverley; but I have lost him, Julia! My aunt has discovered our intercourse by a note she intercepted, and has confin'd me ever 60 since! Yet, would you believe it? she has absolutely fallen1 in love with a tall Irish baronet she met one night since she has2 been here, at Lady Macshuffle's rout. JUL. You jest, Lydia! upon my word. She really3 carries on a kind of 65 te with him, under a feigned name though, till she o be known to him; - but it is a Delia or a Celia, JUL. Then, surely, she is now more indulgent to her niece. LYD. Quite the contrary. Since she has discovered her own frailty, she is become more suspicious of mine. inform you of another plague! That odio Ana 1 RR: fallen absolutely. 2 RR: we have. 3 ] must to be ely. in Bath to-day; so that I protest I shall be teased out of all JUL. Come, come, Lydia, hope the best Sir Anthony shall 75 LYD. But you have not heard the worst. Unfortunately I had quarrelled with my poor Beverley, just before my aunt made the discovery, and I have not seen him since, to make it up. JUL. What was his offence? 80 LYD. Nothing at all! But, I don't know how it was, as often as we had been together, we had never had a quarrel! And, somehow I was afraid he would never give me an opportunity. So, last Thursday, I wrote a letter to myself, to 85 inform myself that Beverley was at that time paying his addresses to another woman. I sign'd it your Friend unknown, showed it to Beverley, charg'd him with his falsehood, put myself in a violent passion, and vow'd I'd never see him more. JUL. And you let him depart so, and have not seen him since? LYD. 'Twas the next day my aunt found the matter out. I intended only to have teased him three days and a half, and now I've lost hịm for ever. JUL. If he is as deserving and sincere as you have represented him to me, he will never give you up so. Yet, consider, Lydia, you tell me he is but an ensign, and you have thirty thousand pounds! 90 95 LYD. But you know I lose most of my fortune, if I marry 100 LYD. What, does Julia tax me with caprice?—I thought 105 i do not love even his faults. D. But a-propos you have sent to him, I suppose? JUL. Not yet, upon my word nor has he the least idea of ny being in Bath. - Sir Anthony's resolution was so sudden, I could not inform him of it. 1 LYD. Well, Julia, you are your own mistress (though under the protection of Sir Anthony) yet have you, for this long year, been the 1 slave to the caprice, the whim, the jealousy of this ungrateful Faulkland, who will ever delay assuming the right: of a husband, while you suffer him to be equally imperious as a lover. JUL. Nay, you are wrong entirely. We were contracted. before my father's death. That, and some consequent embarrassments, have delay'd what I know to be my Faulkland's most ardent wish. He is too generous to trifle on such a point and for his character, you wrong him there, too. — dia, he is too proud, too noble to be jealous; if he is , 'tis without dissembling; if fretful, without rudeness.to the foppery 2 of love, he is negligent of the little duties d from a lover - but being unhackney'd in the passion, nis love is ardent and sincere; and as it engrosses his whole soul, he expects every thought and emotion of his mistress to move in unison with his. Yet, though his pride calls for this full return his humility makes him undervalue those qualities in him, which should entitle him to it; and not feeling why he should be lov'd to the degree he wishes, he still suspects that he is not lov'd enough. This temper, I must own, has cost me many unhappy hours; but I have learned to think myself debtor, for those imperfections which arise from the ardour h's love,5 4 LD. Well, I cannot blame you for defending him. But e candidly, Julia, had he never sav'd your life, do you think you should have been attach'd to him as you are? Believe me, the rude blast that overset your boat was a pros- 140 perous gale of love to him. JUL. Gratitude may have strengthened my attachment to Mr. Faulkland, but I loved him before he had preserv'd the, yet surely that alone were an obligation sufficient. LYD. Obligation! — why a water spaniel would have done 145 as much! Well, I should never think of giving my heart to a man because he could swim! JUL. Come, Lydia, you are too inconsiderate. LYD. Nay, I do but jest - What's here? Enter LUCY in a hurry Lucy. O Ma'am, here is Sir Anthony Absolute just come 150 home with your aunt. LYD. They'll not come here. — Lucy do you watch. [Exit LUCY. JUL. Yet I must go. Sir Anthony does not know I am here, and if we meet, he'll detain me, to show me the town. I'll take another opportunity of paying my respects to Mrs. 155 Malaprop, when she shall treat me, as long as she chooses, with her select words so ingeniously misapplied, without being mis pronounced. Re-enter LUCY LUCY. O Lud! Ma'am, they are both coming upstairs. Adieu, my dear 160 Julia, I'm sure you are in haste to send to Faulkland.— There through my room you'll find another staircase. JUL. Adieu! [Embrace.] [Exit JULIA. LYD. Here, my dear Lucy, hide these books. Quick, quick! Fling Peregrine Pickle under the toilet-throw Roderick 165 Random into the closet put The Innocent Adultery into The Whole Duty of Man thrust Lord Aimworth under the sofa cram Ovid behind the bolster there put The Man of now lay Mrs. Chapone in 170 Feeling into your pocket sight, and leave Fordyce's Serms open on the table. Lucy. O burn it, Ma'am! the hair-dresser has torn away as far as Prober Pride !-open at Sobriety.Fling me Lord MRS. MAL. There, Sir Anthony, there sits the deliberate 175 Simpleton who wants to disgrace her family, and lavish herself on a fellow not worth a shilling. LYD. Madam, I thought you once MRS. MAL. You thought, Miss! - I don't know any business you have to think at all thought does not become a 180 young woman; the point we would request of you is, that you will promise to forget this fellow-to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory. emories are independent of our forget. Miss; there is nothing on earth person chooses to set about it. - I'm 185 sure I have as much forgot your poor dear uncle as if he had never existed - and I thought it my duty so to do; and let me tell you, Lydia, these violent memories don't become a young 190 woman. SIR ANTH. Why sure she won't pretend to remember what she's ordered not! aye, this comes of her reading! LYD. What crime, Madam, have I committed, to be treated thus? MRS. MAL. Now don't attempt to extirpate yourself from the matter; you know I have proof controvertible of it. But tell me, will you promise to do as you're bid? a husband of your friends choosing? LYD. Madam, I must tell you plainly, tha Will you tal Refe 195 |