SCENE V.

Jourdain, Martin, Isabel.

_Mart._ Ha! Why this unseasonable Interruption, while your Daughter is at Confession?

_Jourd._ Oh, Father, I have brought you News will make you happy, will rejoice your poor Heart. My Daughter is redeemed.

_Mart._ Out of Purgatory----vain Man! dost thou think to inform the Church?--

_Jourd._ I suppose St. _Francis_ has been beforehand with me. Indeed I should have imagined that before: for we seldom hear any thing from the Saints, but thro' the Mouth of a Priest.

_Mart._ (What does he mean?) [_Aside._

_Jourd._ Well, Daughter, the Thoughts of a Nunnery now give you no Uneasiness.

_Mart._ No, no, she is perfectly reconciled to it, and I am confident, would not quit the Nunnery for the Bed of a Prince.

_Jourd._ Ha! would not quit the Nunnery, Heaven forbid.

_Mart._ How! you are not mad!

_Jourd._ Unless with Joy. I thought you had known that I have received an Order from St. _Francis_, to marry my Daughter immediately.

_Mart._ Oh! Folly! to marry her immediately; why ay, to marry her to the Church, St. _Francis_ means. You see into what Errors the Laity run, when they go without the Leading-strings of the Church, and would interpret for themselves what they know nothing of.

_Isa._ I'll take this Opportunity to steal off, and communicate a Design of mine to young _Laroon_, which may draw this Priest into a Snare he little dreams of.

_Jourd._ But I cannot see how that should be St. Francis's Meaning: For tho' my Daughter may be married to the Church in a figurative Sense, sure, she cannot be with Child by the Church in a literal one.

_Mart._ I see the Business now, unhappy Man! I was in Hopes to have prevented this----_Exorcizo te, Exorcizo te,_ Satan. _Ton Dapamibominos prosephe podas ocus Achilleus_.

_Jourd._ Bless us, what mean you?

_Mart._ You are possessed; the Devil has taken possession of you; he is now within you, I saw him just now look out of your Eyes.

_Jourd._ O miserable Wretch that I am!