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THE

CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS.

ACT I.

Scene I.-A Hall.

Enter VANE, in a riding dress, and a Footman.

Vane. Run, and tell Mrs. Warner, my lord is at hand; and bid the butler send me a bottle of hock.[Throws himself along the hall chairs, wiping his forehead.] -Phew! the months have jumbled out of their places, and we have July in September.

Enter Mrs. Warner.

Mrs. War. Servant, Mr. Vane.

Vane. Ah! my dear creature! how have you done these fifty ages?

Mrs. War. Why, methinks you are grown mighty grand, or you would have come to the still-room to ask; will you choose any chocolate?

Vane. Why don't you see I am dead?—absolutely dead; and, if you was to touch me, I should shake to mere dust, like an Egyptian mummy.-Because it was not provoking enough to lounge away a whole summer in the country, here I am driven up to town, as if the devil was at my heels, in the shape of our hopeful heir; who has neither suffered my lord nor me to rest

one moment, through his confounded impatience to see his uncle.

Mrs. War. Umph-he'll have enough of the old gentleman presently. He is the very moral of my poor dear lady, his sister, who never was at peace herself, nor suffered any one else to be so. Such a house as we have had, ever since he came !-Why, he is more full of importance and airs than a bailiff in possession; and hectors over Miss Mortimer, till she almost keeps her chamber to avoid him.

Vane. Hates Miss Mortimer !-Why, here'll be the devil to pay about her, I suppose!

Mrs. War. Hate her? ay, that he does. He look'd as if he could have kill'd her, the moment she came down to see him; and got into his chamber presently after, where he sends for me.-"Who is this young woman, Mrs. What's-your-name?" says he. Why, sir, says I, she is the orphan of a Colonel Mortimer, whose intimacy with my lord, says I" Pho, pho," says he, "all that I know, woman; what does she do in this house?" says he; his face wrinkling all over, like cream when it's skimming. Why, sir, says I, her father unluckily died just before the Duke his brother, and so could not leave her one shilling of all that fine fortune; and so my lord intends to marry her to Mr. Woodville, says I. "He does?" cries he: "heav'n' be prais'd I'm come in time to mar that dainty project, however. You may go, woman, and tell miss, I don't want any thing more to-night."-So up goes I to Miss Mortimer, and tells her all this. Lord! how glad she was, to find he intended to break the match, though she can't guess what he means.

Vane. Upon my soul, I think it is full as hard to guess what she means. What the devil, will not my lord's title, fortune, and only son, be a great catch for a girl without a friend or a shilling?

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