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Sparkish-Prithee, Frank, dost think my wife that shall be there, a fine person?

Harcourt-I could gaze upon her till I became as blind as you are.

Sparkish-How as I am? how?

Harcourt.

Because you are a lover, and true lovers are blind, stock blind.

Sparkish-True, true; but, by the world, she has wit too, as well as beauty: go, go with her into a corner, and try if she has wit; talk to her anything, she's bashful before me.

Harcourt

- Indeed, if a woman wants wit in a corner, she has it nowhere.

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Alithea Sir, you dispose of me a little before your time[Aside to SPARKISH. Sparkish-Nay, nay, madam, let me have an earnest of your obedience, or go, go, madam [HARCOURT courts ALITHEA aside. Pinchwife - How, sir! if you are not concerned for the honor of a wife, I am for that of a sister: he shall not debauch her. Be a pander to your own wife! bring men to her! let 'em make love before your face! thrust 'em into a corner together, then leave 'em in private! is this your town wit and conduct?

Sparkish-Ha! ha! ha! a silly wise rogue would make one laugh more than a stark fool, ha! ha! I shall burst. Nay, you shall not disturb 'em ; I'll vex thee, by the world.

[Struggles with PINCHWIFE to keep him from HARCOURT and ALITHEA.

Alithea - The writings are drawn, sir, settlements made; 'tis too late, sir, and past all revocation.

Harcourt Then so is my death.

Alithea

I would not be unjust to him.

Harcourt-Then why to me so?
Alithea I have no obligation to you.
Harcourt-My love.

Alithea - I had his before.

Harcourt-You never had it; he wants, you see, jealousy, the only infallible sign of it.

:

Alithea - Love proceeds from esteem; he cannot distrust my virtue besides, he loves me, or he would not marry me. Harcourt - Marrying you is no more sign of his love, than bribing your woman that he may marry you is a sign of his

generosity. Marriage is rather a sign of interest than love; and he that marries a fortune covets a mistress, not loves her. But if you take marriage for a sign of love, take it from me immediately.

Alithea - No, now you have put a scruple in my head; but in short, sir, to end our dispute, I must marry him, my reputation would suffer in the world else.

Harcourt-No; if you do marry him, with your pardon, madam, your reputation suffers in the world, and you would be thought in necessity for a cloak.

Alithea-Nay, now you are rude, sir. - Mr. Sparkish, pray come hither, your friend here is very troublesome, and very loving.

Harcourt-Hold! hold!

Pinchwife-D'ye hear that?

[Aside to ALITHEA.

Harcourt-Madam, you would not have been so little generous as to have told him.

Alithea Yes, since you could be so little generous as to wrong him.

Harcourt-Wrong him! no man can do't; he's beneath an injury: a bubble, a coward, a senseless idiot, a wretch so contemptible to all the world but you, that

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Alithea Hold, do not rail at him, for since he is like to be my husband, I am resolved to like him: nay, I think I am obliged to tell him you are not his friend. Master Sparkish,

Master Sparkish!

Sparkish-What, what?

What, what? — [To HARCOURT.] Now, dear rogue, has not she wit?

Harcourt-Not so much as I thought and hoped she had. [Speaks surlily.

Alithea- Mr. Sparkish, do you bring people to rail at you? Harcourt-Madam

Sparkish-How! no; but if he does rail at me, 'tis but in jest, I warrant: what we wits do for one another, and never take any notice of it.

Alithea

[Aside.

He spoke so scurrilously of you, I had no patience to hear him; besides, he has been making love to me. Harcourt-True, damned tell-tale woman! Sparkish-Pshaw! to show his parts we wits rail and make love often, but to show our parts; as we have no affections, so we have no malice, we

-

Alithea He said you were a wretch below an injury —

Sparkish - Pshaw!

Harcourt-Damned, senseless, impudent, virtuous jade! Well, since she won't let me have her, she'll do as good, she'll make me hate her.

Alithea A common bubble

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Sparkish-Pshaw!

Alithea A coward

Sparkish - Pshaw, pshaw!

Alithea A senseless, driveling idiot—

[Aside.

Sparkish-How! did he disparage my parts? Nay, then, my honor's concerned, I can't put up that, sir, by the worldbrother, help me to kill him- [Aside.] I may draw now, since we have the odds of him:-'tis a good occasion, too, before my mistress [Offers to draw.

Alithea Hold, hold!
Sparkish-What, what?

Alithea [Aside.] I must not let 'em kill the gentleman, neither, for his kindness to me: I am so far from hating him, that I wish my gallant had his person and understanding. Nay, if my honor

Sparkish-I'll be thy death.

Alithea Hold, hold! Indeed, to tell the truth, the gentleman said after all, that what he spoke was but out of friendship to you.

Sparkish-How! say I am a fool, that is, no wit, out of friendship to me?

Alithea Yes; to try whether I was concerned enough for you; and made love to me only to be satisfied of my virtue, for your sake.

Harcourt
Sparkish

Kind, however.

[Aside. Nay, if it were so, my dear rogue, I ask thee pardon; but why would you not tell me so, faith? Harcourt Because I did not think on't, faith. Sparkish

Come, Horner does not come; Harcourt, let's

be gone to the new play. -Come, madam.

Alithea

- I will not go, if you intend to leave me alone in the box, and run into the pit, as you use to do.

Sparkish - Pshaw, I'll leave Harcourt with you in the box to entertain you, and that's as good.

PENELOPE GOES TO COURT.1

BY MAUDE WILDER GOODWIN.

(From "White Aprons.")

[MAUD WILDER GOODWIN: An American historical novelist; born in New York state in 1856. She has published: "Open Sesame" (3 vols., 1890-1893), edited, with Blanche Wilder Bellamy; "The Colonial Cavalier" (1894), "The Head of a Hundred " (1895), "White Aprons, a Romance of Bacon's Rebellion " (1896), “Dolly Madison," a biography (1896), and "Fort Amsterdam in the Days of the Dutch" (1897).]

"I AM to go to Court, and 'tis come about in the strangest fashion. One would scarce credit it an it were set forth in a play. Folk would say, 'Why doth ye playwright trifle with us thus, and think to trick us into a belief in so unlikely a happening?' Yet all this hath verily come to pass, and in real life too."

Yes, it was indeed, as Penelope wrote in her journal, a strange happening. Just when she and her uncle were worn out with waiting for news from the Duke of Buckingham, and when Mr. Pepys was actually writing to beg the intervention of the Duke of York with the King, his brother, in burst Godfrey Kneller, one morning, bubbling over with joy and well-nigh breathless with excitement.

He had been at Whitehall, so his story ran, for a sitting of Queen Catherine, the last before the finishing of her portrait, -and having with him the sketch of Penelope, had shown it to the Queen as a fancy piece, to be called "Spring"; and she, being mightily taken therewith, had called His Majesty, and bade him say if ever he had seen a face so fair at once and so sad. ""Tis Spring' indeed," quoth she, " and a very pretty conceit, with the sun on the hair and the dew in the eyes and April in the showery smiling o' the lips."

But His Majesty took the picture to the window, and, after studying it close, looked up and said to the artist, while he twirled his mustachios:

"Kneller, this is no fancy piece. 'Tis a portrait, and a close study at that. This eye, with its tiny mole on the under lid, hath the very trick of life in't, and that ripple of red brown hair was never imagined save by him who had seen it. Out

1 Copyright, 1898, by Little, Brown & Co. Used by permission.

with it, man, — what name bears thy Spring' when she steps forth from this canvas?"

"Thus commanded by royalty," said the painter, "I dared not dissemble, but told him straight 'twas the niece of Samuel Pepys, -one Mistress Penelope Payne, but lately come to London from the colony of Virginia.

"Pepys?' quoth the King; 'Pepys of the Navy Office, I trow. He hath besieged me with letters of late, since he hath been in disgrace, begging to come kiss my hand. Well, perchance his banishment hath lasted long enough,-how say you, Kate, shall we have this Mistress Spring and her uncle to our mask next week?'

"The Queen, who, methought, was but too happy at hearing herself thus kindly spoke to by His Majesty, smiled right graciously, and declared she would give much to see the beautiful young stranger; whereupon the Chamberlain, in my hearing, was bidden to dispatch a card."

On a February morning a great card arrived at the door of the small house in Seething Lane, a card with gilt lettering, bidding Mr. Pepys and his niece to a mask at Whitehall a week from that night. Penelope wavered between the heights of hope and the depths of despair; but her uncle was all delight, and talked of costumes till his niece was nearly distracted. She strove to gain his permission to go as a nun, in a black domino; but he would hear no such word.

"If you would catch the King's ear," said Master WorldlyWise-Man, "ye must first catch his eye," so he talked now of a shepherdess, that the turn of the foot might show to advantage; then of Diana with a bow and arrows, leaving the arm bare; then of the part of St. Cecilia, which, as he said, need cost but little, as his cousin Roger would lend the harp, only that would prevent moving about, and Penelope's walk was the most seizing thing about her.

At last, wearied out, poor Penelope cried: "If in very truth I must trick out a sad heart in such like mummeries, I will go as Virginia."

"'Tis an

"Ay, and so thou shalt," answered her uncle. extraordinary good idea and do please me mightily. For myself, I will be a Spanish cardinal, for I love a scarlet robe, and considering the silver cup I have promised to the clothworkers, methinks I should get the making on't for nothing." And so the matter was settled.

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