ELLEN TERRY

LADIES' RECITER.

THE WIDOW JONES.

Characters: WILDRAKE-CONSTANCE,

Constance. The booby! he must fall in love, indeed!
And now he's naught but sentimental looks,
And sentences pronounced 'twixt breath and voice,
And attitudes of tender languishment!

Nor can I get from him the name of her
Hath turned him from a stock into a fool.

He hems and haws, now titters, now looks grave!
Begins to speak, and halts! Takes off his eyes
To fall in contemplation on a chair,

A table, or the ceiling, wall, or floor!

I'll plague him worse and worse? O, here he comes!

Enter WILDRAKE.

Wild. Despite her spiteful usage, I 'm resolved

To tell her now. Dear neighbor Constance!

Con.

Fool!

Mistress Constance, then,—

Don't call me anything.

In what

I'll positively call thee that.

Con.

I hate to hear thee speak, to look at thee,
To dwell in the same house with thee!

Wild.

An ape!

Con.

Who bade thee ape the gentleman?

And put on dress that don't belong to thee?

Go! change thee with thy whipper-in or huntsman,
And none will doubt thou wearest thy own clothes.
Wild. A pretty pass! Mocked for the very dress
Untoward things

I bought to pleasure her!
Are women! (Aside-walks

backwards and forwards.)

Con. Do you call that walking? Pray,

What makes you twist your body so, and take
Such pains to turn your toes out? If you'd walk,
Walk thus! Walk like a man, as I do now! (Walking.)
Is yours the way a gentleman should walk.

him.) Do you call that walking?

(Mimics

Wild. My thanks for a drill-sergeant twice a day For her sake! (Aside.)

Con.

Now, of all things in the world,

What made me dance?

What made you dance last night?
Wild.
Con. Right! It was anything but dancing? Steps
That never came from dancing-school,-nor English,
Nor Scotch, nor Irish! You must try to cut;
And how you did it! (Cuts.) That's the way to cut!
And then your chasse! Thus you went, and thus
(Mimicking him),

As though you had been playing at hop, skip,
And jump! And yet you looked so monstrous pleased,
And played the simpleton with such a grace,
Taking the tittering for compliment,

I could have boxed you soundly for 't. Ten times
Denied I that I knew you.

Wild.

Twenty guineas

Were better in the gutter thrown, than gone

To fee a dancing master!

Con.

An amateur in music!
Was that you praised
Jones!"

(Aside.)

And you're grown

What fine air

last night'?"The Widow