Scene II. Albert and Ellis meet. Ellis informs him that she must hold a

confabulation with him the next day; and desires that he will remain at Lewes to be at hand.--'

'Oh, Miss Joddrel!' interrupted Ellis, 'you must, at least, give me leave to say, that it is by your command that I make a request so extraordinary!'

'By no means. He must not suspect that I have any knowledge of your intention. The truth, like an explosion of thunder, shall burst upon his head at once. So only shall I truly know whether it will shake him with dismay--or magnetize him by its sublimity.'

'Yet how, Madam, under what pretence, can I take such a liberty?'

'Pho, pho; this is no time for delicate demurs. If he be not engaged to stay before I turn his brother adrift, he will accompany him to town, as a thing of course, to console him in his willowed state. The rest of my plot is not yet quite ripe for disclosure. But all is arranged. And though I know not whether the catastrophe will be tragic or comic, I am prepared in my part for either.'

She then went away.