Page:Dramas 1.pdf/161

Rh

Willingly, if I knew how.

Get into some attachment, and difficulties, and correspondences; for, next to receiving a love-letter one's self, there is nothing so delightful as peeping into the love-letters of one's neighbours.

Ha, ha, ha! You might be easily satisfied; for I have only to give Mr. Smitchenstault a little encouragement, and we shall have love-letters enough to peep into.

Somebody is coming. ( retires softly without being perceived, and, by the opposite door, enters, with heavy creaking steps.)

See! the old proverb verified; speak of him, and he appears. Mr. Smitchenstault, you come in good time to give us the benefit of your exquisite sensibility. My sister there is painting a rose, and two buds which seem newly separated from it; and she must not put dew-drops upon each, you know, because that would be formal: now, whether should the rose appear to be weeping for the buds, or the buds for the rose?—the parental or the filial affections prevail?