imputed merit; I must have only the mockery of your addresses, while all your serious aims are fixed on fortune.

Enter HARDCASTLE and Sir CHARLES from behind.

Sir Char. Here, behind this screen.

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

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Mar. By heavens, madam, fortune was ever my smallest consideration. Your beauty at first caught my eye; for who uld see that without emotion? But every moment that I converse with you, steals in some new graee, 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 Char. 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 connexion, 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?

Har. 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 shows me your merit, only serves to increase my diffidence and confusion. Here let me continue

Sir Char. 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 amazeinent! 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?

Har. Oh, the devil!

Miss Hard. Yes, sir, that very identical tall, squinting lady you were pleased to take me for, [courtesying] 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 Miss Biddy Buckskin, till three in the morning? Ha! ha! ha!

Mar. O, curse on my noisy head! I never attempted to be impudent yet, that I was not taken 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'm 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. Enter Mrs. HARDCASTLE and TONY.

Mrs. Hard. So, so, they're gone off.

care not.

Hard. Who gone?

Let them

go, I

Mrs. Hard. My dutiful niece and her gentleman, Mr.

Hastings, from town.

modest visiter here.

He who came down with our

Sir Char. 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. Hard. 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.

Hard. But you know if your son, when of age, refuses to marry his cousin, her whole fortune is then at her own disposal,

Mrs. 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.

Hast. [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'm 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.

Hard. Be what it will, I'm glad they're come back to reclaim their due. Come hither, Tony, boy.

refuse this lady's hand, whom I now offer you?

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

Do you

You know I

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 Constance Neville may marry whom she pleases, and Tony Lumpkin is his own man again.

Sir Char. 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. And, 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 mistaken in the wife.

[Exeunt Omnes: