Page:A Series of Plays on the Passions Volume 1.pdf/199

Rh

loving good uncle (Coaxing him) do let Mariane take my place for a little while. We are newly come to Bath, no body knows us : we have been but at one ball, and as I went in plain dress, and Mariane looks so much better than me, she has already been mistaken for the heiress, and I for her portionless cousin: I have told you how we shall manage it, do lend us your assistance!

With. So in the disguise of a portionless spinster, you are to captivate some man of sense, I suppose.

Ag. I would fain have it so.

With. Go, go, thou art a fool, Agnes! who will fall in love with a little ordinary girl like thee? why there is not one feature in thy face that a man would give a farthing for.

Mar. You are very saucy, uncle.

Ag. I should despair of my beauty to be sure, since I am reckoned so much like you, my dear uncle; yet old nurse told me that a rich lady, a great lady, and the prettiest lady that ever wore silk, fell in love, once on a time, with Mr. Anthony, and would have followed him to the world's end too, if it had not been for an old hunks of a father, who deserved to be drubeddrubbed [sic] for his pains. Don't you think he did, sir?

With. (endeavouring to look angry.) Old nurse is a fool, and you are an impudent hussy. I'll hear no more of this nonsense. (Breaks from them and goes towards the door: they run after him, and draw him hack again.)