SCENE I.--_The cottage--same as first scene of second act--Chairs,

tables as before._

_MISS MEADOWS, L. and CHESTER, R., discovered._

CHE. Now, Jessy, I think we clearly understand each other?

MISS MEA. Perfectly. We agree to marry with a mystery hanging over each of us. My poor aunt and I, through our retired mode of living, are supposed to be very suspicious persons, and yet you are ready and willing to give me your hand, let me turn out to be what I may?

CHE. For better or for worse, in every sense of the word.

MISS MEA. And I undertake to be equally as rash in accepting you.

CHE. We shall gain one point by this blind bargain--we are assured that we love one another for ourselves alone.

MISS MEA. Ah! how charming is that assurance--and how miserable to possess wealth, attracting a train of suitors with not one sincere, disinterested heart amongst them.

CHE. Poor as I am, an heiress is my aversion--not that money lowers the worth of woman; but that its worshippers pervert her understanding, harden her heart, and teach her a false estimate of herself.

MISS MEA. Give me love in a cottage.

CHE. Or a second floor in London, amongst several layers of lodgers.

MISS MEA. Ah! charming.

CHE. Two knocks and a ring for the artist--then to think of painting portraits of people so atrociously ugly, that it is more than one's poor half guinea is worth not to flatter them. To roam through Battersea or Walworth in search of the picturesque, till a stroke of fortune promotes one to the situation of drawing master to some suburban academy.

MISS MEA. Oh, delightful! to walk twenty miles twice a week for as many pounds per annum. And what must _I_ do? _I_ must not be idle--I'll commence milliner--trim caps--fabricate flounces, and wait upon fantastical ladies with patterns of the last new toque--and with my needlework and your painting--my industry and your enthusiasm--we shall be happy--I am sure we shall!

_Enter MISS MACAW, F.E.L._

Good day, aunt, we have not had the pleasure of seeing you since your return home last night--it was very kind of that barbarian, Mr. Damper, to escort you to the door--I saw him leave you from my window.

MISS MAC. 'Twas no more than the creature's duty.

MISS MEA. His duty!

MISS MAC. You have often heard me declare that my aversion to the male sex was so great, that the man who could be bold enough to propose to me, with the prospect of misery that must be his portion in the union, I would accept him instantly--now Mr. Damper----

MISS MEA. } } What? CHE. }

MISS MAC. Mr. Damper has said that he hates me sufficiently to marry me; and, as the passion is mutual, I have taken him at his word--to-morrow morning I change my name.

MISS MEA. So soon, aunt?

MISS MAC. If you are surprised at our haste, you must consider that we have little of life's time to lose; and, what in you would be indelicate precipitancy, with us, is but common prudence.

MISS MEA. Are you serious, aunt?

MISS MAC. Matrimony is not a subject to jest upon, whatever may be your notions of the important engagement.

MISS MEA. Bless me!

_Enter NIGGLE, D.F., in haste._

NIG. _(To CHESTER.)_ Young man, where's your mother? Pray excuse me--I mean the lady--the relation--the friend--though I care not who she may be--you know the person I mean.

CHE. Miss Coy?

NIG. Yes--I have been in search of her every where--all last night--all to-day--Daphne never led Apollo such a chase as that dear creature has given me.

CHE. For what?

NIG. To tell her that I can't live without her--to tell her that my anti-matrimonial persuader is removed--that I'm a free man, and that I wish to marry her immediately--and repair the wrong that I have done her at once--before my connubial furor may again fluctuate.

CHE. She is gone----

NIG. Gone! Where?

CHE. To London!

NIG. Ah, my cruelty has driven her there.

CHE. That, and the flight of an agent, to whose care she had entrusted her property.

NIG. Eh! what? flight of an agent--is she then in distress?--without a penny?

CHE. 'Tis feared so, sir.

NIG. Huzza! That was the obstacle she alluded to--that is the reason she has avoided me--I am glad of it--I have now an opportunity of proving the disinterestedness of my passion for her. [_DAMPER appears F.D._] Oh, madam _(To MISS MACAW.)_--what do I not owe to you? 'Tis you--you have removed this incubus--'Tis _you_ that have spurred this nightmare from my bosom, to take him to your own. Generous woman, let me embrace you.

[_He warmly embraces MISS MACAW, who rises with great indignation._

MISS MAC. Sir! how dare you? The first time that I ever was embraced by a man in my life! How dare you, sir, take that liberty? Had I been aware of your indecorous intention I should have slapped your face--I would, sir--Ugh! the sensation is more repulsive than I ever imagined it to be.

NIG. My dear madam--my gratitude was so----

DAM. _(Coming between them.)_ John! John!--you must learn to suppress such grateful feelings--my miseries are beginning already. Before the knot is actually tied, another is kissing my intended wife.

NIG. Then let me get one of my own, and never again will I be under such an obligation to you--I could not controul my grateful impulse--but I am wasting time, I must follow my fate immediately.

DAM. Where are you going?

NIG. To bring back the dear creature whose feelings I have so trifled with, and make an instant reparation by following your example. _(Going.)_

DAM. Stop, stop!

NIG. Pray don't attempt to shake my resolution--I wont hear you.

DAM. I but wish to exact one promise from you.

NIG. What is it?

DAM. That you will give my arguments fair play, that you wont marry till I have been a wretched man a month.

NIG. Don't exact the promise--pray don't--it may be years before I am again in such a marrying mood. I'll return--I will, indeed--pray wish me success--but I don't despair--I feel quite an ardent lover again. Though I am not running away with a lady I am running after one--eh?--Ha! ha!--good bye. Now for a post chaise and a hot pursuit--for a last attack on this formidable castle of connubiality, or death in its trenches.

[_Exit D.F._

DAM. Poor man--poor man.

CHE. _I_ have also received an invitation to this manor-house, with a request to bring a lady on my arm.

DAM. So have I--of course I must take _you._ _(To MISS MACAW.)_

MISS MAC. What lady else _ought_ you to take, sir?

CHE. Who is the party residing there?

DAM. I don't know; the house has been shut up for some time--it has undergone complete repair--new furniture from London has been seen going in--a set of servants are there, but who the party is that has invited me, I neither know nor care to know.

[_Goes up the stage, followed by MISS MACAW._

CHE. Let us leave this loving couple to themselves--will you accompany me to this Manor house to-night?

MISS MEA. Certainly, if you wish for my society.

CHE. Wish for your society!--Jessy--I must now remove the mask--nothing can occur _now_ to prevent our happiness--and you _shall_ know who and what I am--I am burning with impatience to tell you----

MISS MEA. _(Interrupting.)_ I hope you are what you have seemed to be; if you are _not_ poor, I shall never love you; if you are not the indigent struggling creature I have believed you to be, there is an end of all--there shall be no marriage--no love in a cottage--no second floor in London--I have done with you for ever.

CHE. Hear me, Jessy.

MISS MEA. Well, I will hear you--step this way--in the garden we shall be free from interruption; and there, when you have told me the whole truth, if I discover that you have deceived me--I--I shall break my heart with vexation.

[_Exeunt F.E.L._

DAM. (R.) What is the matter with them, I wonder--quarrelling of course--all that the men and women seem to have to do when they get together--all that they are fit for I know. Now, madam, for our affair--to-morrow morning, the ceremony over, you go to my house.

MISS MAC. (L.) If I please.

DAM. Indeed! Now as I naturally do not wish to receive more punishment than my crime, as a matter of course, will bring with it, tell me who and what you are.

MISS MAC. A lady! What are you?

DAM. A gentleman.

MISS MAC. Independent?

DAM. Seven hundred a year. You are without a sixpence, of course?--hope you are--extravagant, I dare say, then I shall soon be a beggar.

MISS MAC. I am happy to say, sir, that I need never require your help in pecuniary matters.

DAM. Sorry for it. Many relations? I hope you have an army of poor ones--that _will_ serve me right.

MISS MAC. I have not, sir.

DAM. Dear me, I am afraid I shall be too comfortable. How old are you?

MISS MAC. That is a question, sir, that no woman can ever pardon being put to her. Your other insulting queries I replied to at once, and rather admired the brutal spirit that prompted them, than felt annoyed at their utter want of feeling. But to ask a woman her age! 'Tis a sin, sir--'tis giving encouragement to lying; for a man is assured, when he puts _that_ question, he can never be told the truth.

DAM. Ha! ha! This is delicious--this is a foretaste of my approaching bliss--this is a gleam of the light of happiness that is in future to shine full upon me. Oh!--what it's your weak side, eh? I'm delighted to have discovered it--when we are married I'll ask the question every night and morning during our bitter honey-moon.

MISS MAC. You shall be disappointed, sir; we are not yet man and wife--I knew you to be a brute; but I never thought you a fool--and the latter character is one that I rather pity than despise. To pity you would be to admit a feeling akin to love, and any approach to love for you, would be to admit an affection for a bear, or a rhinoceros, or any other monstrosity of nature. No, sir! I have now done with you--find some other female to worry--Miss Maria Macaw leaves you to your single blessedness.

[_Exit F.E.L._

DAM. Is she in earnest now, or is this some little specimen of antique coquetry? After having made up my mind to make a woman miserable, I should not like to be disappointed: I had set my heart upon worrying a wife to death--to have some one to vent all my ill-humours upon--to snarl at--to find fault with--to be angry when she was pleased, and pleased only when she was angry--and to thwart and vex continually--I should have revelled in such a life, and have been delighted in letting every one see what a wretched state is the married one. She can't mean it--Oh, no--no--'tis but one of the coquettish arts of her artful sex--I'll retaliate--I'll call upon Miss Skylark or some other woman, and take her on my arm to this party, to-night--_I'll_ be a coquette--a _male_ coquette--and fight her with her own weapons.

_Re-enter CHESTER; he paces the stage, DAMPER following him. Crosses to R._

CHE. Oh! the perversity of womankind: I thought she would have been surprised and delighted at the intelligence that I had wooed and won her under a false appearance, that instead of a struggling life of poverty, I could offer her one of wealth and comfort, and that my reason for such concealment was, that I might find one who would love me for myself alone. Why should she be angry? Why should she hear me with such indignation? Oh! woman--woman!

DAM. A diabolical sex, isn't it, sir? I always said so--nobody would believe _me_--no one heeded _my_ words--but now you'll be a proselyte to creed, wont you?

CHE. I'll go to the manor house----

DAM. So will I.

CHE. With another----

DAM. That's what _I_ intend to do.

CHE. If I can find a lady to accompany me.

DAM. Let us go out together and pick up the first pair we can meet--you choose the youngest, I the oldest. Take my arm--there are two or three women in this town that I hate mortally, we'll call on them--I'll introduce you, and we'll take our choice.

CHE. I thought to see her face beam with delight.

DAM. One never can tell how they intend to look.

CHE. Oh, Jessy!

DAM. Oh, Maria!

CHE. Oh, woman! perverse----

DAM. Artful----

CHE. Capricious----

DAM. Never-know-where-to-have-'em woman!

[_Exeunt D.F._