gentleman! spare my child, if you have any mercy!

Hard. My wife! as I am a Christian. From whence can she come, or what does she mean!*

Mrs Hard. [Kneeling.] Take compassion on us, good Mr Highwayman. Take our money, our watches, all we have, but spare our lives. We will never bring you to justice, indeed we won't, good Mr Highwayman!

Hard. I believe the woman's out of her senses! What, Dorothy, don't you know me?

Mrs Hard. Mr Hardcastle, as I'm alive! My fears blinded me. But who, my dear, could have expected to meet you here, in this frightful place, so far from home? What has brought you to follow us?

Enter SIR CHARLES MARLOW and MISS
HARDCASTLE.

Sir Cha. What a situation am I in! If what you say appears, I shall then find a guilty son. If what he says be true, I shall then lose one that, of all others, I most wished for a daughter.

Miss Hard. I am proud of your approbation, and to shew I merit it, if you place yourselves as I directed, you shall hear his explicit declaration. But he comes.

Sir Cha. I'll to your father, and keep him to the appointment. [Exit SIR CHA,

Enter MARLOW.

Mrs Hard. Yes, I shall remember the horsepond as long as I live; I have caught my death in it.-To TONY.] And is it to you, you graceless varlet, I owe all this? I'll teach you to abuse your mother, I will.

Tony. Ecod, mother, all the parish says you have spoiled me, and so you may take the fruits

on't.

Mrs Hard. I'll spoil you, I will! [Follows him off the stage. Hard. There's morality, however, in his reply. [Exit.

Enter HASTINGS and MISS NEVILLE. Hast. My dear Constance, why will you deliberate thus? If we delay a moment, all is lost for ever. Pluck up a little resolution, and we shall soon be out of the reach of her malignity.

Miss Nev. I find it impossible. My spirits are so sunk with the agitations I have suffered, that I am unable to face any new danger. Two or three years patience will, at last, crown us with happiness.

Hast. Such a tedious delay is worse than inconstancy. Let us fly, my charmer! Let us date our happiness from this very moment. Perish fortune! Love and content will increase what we possess beyond a monarch's revenue. Let me prevail.

Miss Nev. No, Mr Hastings; no. Prudence once more comes to my relief, and I will obey its dictates. In the moment of passion, fortune may be despised, but it ever produces a lasting repentance. I'm resolved to apply to Mr Hardcastle's compassion and justice for redress.

Hast: But though he had the will, he has not the power to relieve you.

Miss Nev. But he has influence; and upon that I am resolved to rely.

Miss Hard. [In her own natural munner.] I believe these sufferings cannot be very great, sir, which you can so easily remove. A day or two longer, perhaps, might lessen your uneasiness, by shewing the little value of what you now think proper to regret.

Mar. [Aside.] This girl every moment improves upon me.-[To her.] It must not be, madam. I have already trifled too long with my heart. My very pride begins to submit to my passion. The disparity of education and fortune, the anger of a parent, and the contempt of my equals, begin to lose their weight; and nothing can restore me to myself, but this painful effort of resolution.

Miss Hard. Then go, sir. I'll urge nothing more to detain you. Though my family be as good as hers you came down to visit, and my education, I hope, not inferior, what are these advantages without equal affluence? I must remain contented with the slight approbation of imputed merit; I must have only the mockery of your addresses, while all your serious aims are fixed on fortune.

Enter HARDCASTLE and SIR CAARLES MARLOW from behind.

Sir Cha. Here, behind this screen.

Hard. Ay, ay; make no noise. I'll engage my Kate covers him with confusion at last.

Mar. By heavens, madam, fortune was ever my smallest consideration! Your beauty at first caught my eye; for, who could see that without emotion? But every moment that I converse with you, steals in some new grace, heightens the picture, and gives it stronger expression. What at first seemed rustic plainness, now appears refined simplicity. What seemed forward assurance, now strikes me as the result of courageous innocence, and conscious virtue.

Sir Cha. What can it mean? He amazes me! Hard. I told you how it would be. Hush! Mar. I am now determined to stay, madam, and I have too good an opinion of my father's discernment, when he sees you, to doubt his approbation.

Miss Hard. No, Mr Marlow, I will not, cannot detain you. Do you think I could suffer a connection, in which there is the smallest room for repentance? Do you think I would take the mean advantage of a transient passion, to load you with confusion? Do you think I could ever relish that happiness which was acquired by lessening yours?

Mar. By all that's good, I can have no happiness but what's in your power to grant me. Nor shall I ever feel repentance, but in not having seen your merits before. I will stay, even contrary to your wishes; and though you should persist to shun me, I will make my respectful assiduities atone for the levity of my past conduct.

Miss Hard. Sir, I must entreat you'll desist. As our acquaintance began, so let it end, in indifference. I might have given an hour or two to levity; but seriously, Mr Marlow, do you think I could ever submit to a connexion, where I must appear mercenary, and you imprudent? Do you think I could ever catch at the confident addresses of a secure admirer?

Mar. [Kneeling.] Does this look like security? Does this look like confidence? No, madam, every moment that shews me your merit, only serves to increase my diffidence and confusion. Here let me continue

Sir Cha. I can hold it no longer. Charles, Charles, how hast thou deceived me! Is this your indifference, your uninteresting conversation?

Hard. Your cold contempt; your formal interview? What have you to say now?

Mar. That I'm all amazement! What can it mean?

Hard. It means, that you can say and unsay things at pleasure. That you can address a lady in private, and deny it in public; that you have one story for us, and another for my daughter.

Mar. Daughter!-this lady your daughter? Hard. Yes, sir, my only daughter; my Kate; whose else should she be?

Mar. Oh, the devil!

Miss Hard. Yes, sir, that very identical, tall, squinting lady, you were pleased to take me for [Curtesying.]. She that you addressed as the mild, modest, sentimental man of gravity, and the bold, forward, agreeable rattle of the ladies' club; ha, ha, ha!

Mar. Zounds! there's no bearing this; it's worse than death!

Miss Hard. In which of your characters, sir, will you give us leave to address you? As the faltering gentleman, with looks on the ground, that speaks just to be heard, and hates hypocrisy;

or the loud confident creature, that keeps it up with Mrs Mantrap, and old Mrs Biddy Buckskin, till three in the morning; ha, ha, ha!

*Mar. O, curse ou my noisy head! I never attempted to be impudent yet, that I was not ta ken down. I must be gone.

Hard. By the hand of my body, but you shall not! I see it was all a mistake, and I am rejoiced to find it. You shall not, sir, I tell you. I know she'll forgive you, Won't you forgive him, Kate? We'll all forgive you. Take courage, man, [They retire, she tormenting him to the back scene.

Mrs Hard. My dutiful niece and her gentleman, Mr Hastings, from town. He who came down with our modest visitor here.

Sir Cha. Who, my honest George Hastings? As worthy a fellow as lives, and the girl could not have made a more prudent choice.

Hard. Then, by the hand of my body, I'm proud of the connexion!

Mrs Hurd. Well, if he has taken away the lady, he has not taken her fortune; that remains in this family, to console us for her loss.

Hard. Sure, Dorothy, you would not be so mercenary?

Mrs Hard. Ay, that's my affair, not yours. But, you know, if your son, when of age, refuses to marry his cousin, her whole fortune is then at her own disposal.

Hard. Ay, but he's not of age, and she has not thought proper to wait for his refusal.

Enter HASTINGS, and MISS NEVILLE. Mrs Hard. [Aside.] What, returned so soon! I begin not to like it. Hust. [To HARDCASTLE.] For my late attempt to fly off with your niece, let my present confusion be my punishment. We are now come back, to appeal from your justice to your humanity. By her father's consent, I first paid her my addresses, and our passions were first founded in duty.

Miss Nev. Since his death, I have been obliged to stoop to dissimulation to avoid oppression. In an hour of levity, I was ready even to give up my fortune to secure my choice. But I am now recovered from the delusion, and hope, from your tenderness, what is denied me from a nearer connexion.

Mrs Hard. Pshaw, pshaw! this is all but the whining end of a modern novel.

Hurd. Be it what it will, I'm glad they are come back to reclaim their due. Come hither, Tony, boy. Do you refuse this lady's hand, whom I now offer you?

Tony. What signifies my refusing? You know I can't refuse her till I'm of age, father.

Hard. While I thought concealing your age, boy, was likely to conduce to your improvement, I concurred with your mother's desire to keep it secret. But since I find she turns it to a wrong use, I must now declare, you have been of age these three months.

Tony. Of age! Am I of age, father?
Hard. Above three months.

Tony. Then you'll see the first use I'll make of my liberty. [Taking MISS NEVILLE's hand.] Witness all men, by these presents, that I, Anthony Lumpkin, esquire, of Blank place, refuse you, Constantia Neville, spinster, of no place at all, for my true and lawful wife. So Constantia Neville may marry whom she pleases, and Tony Lumpkin is his own man agaiu.

Sir Cha. O brave squire!
Hast. My worthy friend!

Mrs Hard. My undutiful offspring!

Mar. Joy, my dear George! I give you joy sincerely. And could I prevail upon my little tyrant here to be less arbitrary, I should be the happiest man alive, if you would return me the | favour.

Hast. [To MISS HARDCASTLE.] Come, madam, you are now driven to the very last scene of all your contrivances. I know you like him. I'm sure he loves you; and you must and shall have him.

Hard. [Joining their hands.] And I say so too. Mr Marlow, if she makes as good a wife as she has a daughter, I don't believe you'll ever repent your bargain. So now, to supper. To-morrow we shall gather all the poor of the parish about us, and the mistakes of the night shall be crowned with a merry morning; so, boy, take her: and, as you have been mistaken in the mistress, my wish is, that you may never be mista ken in the wife.

[Exeunt.

SCENE I-An apartment at BELVILLE'S.

Enter CAPTAIN SAVAGE, and MISS WALSING

HAM.

Capt. Sav. Ha, ha, ha! Well, Miss Walsingham, this fury is going; what a noble peal she has rung in Belville's ears!

Miss Wal. Did she see you, captain Savage? Capt Sav. No, I took care of that; for though she is not married to my father, she has ten times the influence of a wife, and might injure me not a little with him, if I did not support her side of the question.

Miss Wal. It was a pleasant conceit of Mr

Belville, to insinuate the poor woman was disordered in her senses!

Capt Sav. And, did you observe how the termagant's violence of temper supported the probability of the charge?

Miss Wal. Yes; she became almost frantic, in reality, when she found herself treated like a mad-woman.

Capt. Sav. Belville's affected surprise, too, was admirable!

Miss Wal. Yes; the hypocritical composure of his countenance, and his counterfeit pity for the poor woman, were intolerable.

Capt. Sav. While that amiable creature, his wife, implicitly believed every syllable he said—

Miss Wal. And felt nothing but pity for the accuser, instead of paying the least regard to the accusation. But pray, is it really under a pretence of getting the girl upon the stage, that Belville has taken away Mrs Tempest's niece from the people she boarded with?

and sent it in a course of circulation to my fa ther.

Miss Wal. So, then, as he has kept his real name artfully concealed, Mrs Tempest can, at most, but suspect him of Miss Leeson's seduc

tion.

Capt. Sav. Of no more; and this, only, from the description of the people who saw him in company with her at the play. But I wish the affair may not have a serious conclusion; for she has a brother, a very spirited young fellow, who is a counsel in the Temple, and who will certainly call Belville to an account the moment he hears of it.

Miss Wal. And what will become of the poor creature after he has deserted her?

Capt. Sav. You know that Belville is generous to profusion, and has a thousand good qualities to counterbalance this single fault of gallantry, which contaminates his character.

-You are

Miss Wal. You men! you men!such wretches, that there's no having a moment's satisfaction with you! and, what's still more provoking, there's no having a moment's satisfaction without you!

Capt. Sav. Nay, don't think us all alike. Miss Wal. I'll endeavour to deceive myself; for, it is but a poor argument of your sincerity, to be the confidant of another's falsehood.

Capt. Sav. Nay, no more of this, my love; no people live happier than Belville and his wife; nor is there a man in England, notwithstanding all his levity, who considers his wife with a warmer degree of affection: if you have a friendship, therefore, for her, let her continue in an error, so necessary to her repose, and give no hint whatever of his gallantries to any body.

Miss Wal. If I had no pleasure in obliging you, I have too much regard for Mrs Belville, not to follow your advice; but you need not enjoin me so strongly on the subject, when you know I can keep a secret.

Miss Wal. The peculiarity of your father's temper, joined to my want of fortune, made it necessary for me to keep our engagements inviolably secret. There is no merit, therefore, either in my prudence, or in my labouring assiduously to cultivate the good opinion of the general, since both were so necessary to my own happiness. Don't despise me for this acknowledgment now. Capt. Sav. Bewitching softness! But your goodyou are now such a favourite with him, that he is eternally talking of you; and I really fancy he means to propose you to me himself; for, last night, in a few minutes after he had declared you would make the best wife in the world, he seriously asked me, if I had any aversion to ma trimony!

Miss Wal. Why, that was a very great concession, indeed, as he seldom stoops to consult any body's inclinations.

Capt. Sav. So it was, I assure you; for, in the army, being used to nothing but command and obedience, he removes the discipline of the parade into his family, and no more expects his orders should be disputed, in matters of a domestic nature, than if they were delivered at the head of his regiment.

Miss Wal. And yet, Mrs Tempest, who, you say, is as much a storm in her nature as her name, is disputing them eternally.

Enter MR and MRS BELVILLE. Bel. Well, Miss Walsingham, have not we had a pretty morning's visitor?

Miss Wal. Really, I think so; and I have been asking captain Savage how long the lady has been disordered in her senses?

Bel. Why will they let the poor woman abroad, without some body to take care of her? Capt. Sav. O, she has her lucid intervals. Miss Wal. I declare I shall be as angry with you as I am with Belville.

[Aside to the captain. Mrs Bel. You can't think how sensibly she spoke at first.

Bel. I should have had no conception of her madness, if she had not brought so preposterous a charge against me.

Enter a Servant.

Mrs Bel. Our compliments, and we shall be glad to see her ladyship. [Exit Servant. Bel. I wonder if lady Rachel knows that Torrington came to town last night from Bath!

Mrs Bel. I hope he has found benefit by the waters; for he is one of the best creatures ex