LADY. You talk as if you hated him. You talk as if you loved him. LADY. Hold your tongue! here he comes. Enter TINSEL. TINSE L. My dear widow. ABIGA L. My dear widow, marry come up! [Afide. LADY. Let him alone, Abigal, fo long as he does not call me my dear wife, there's no harm done. TINSE L. I have been most ridiculously diverted fince I left you your fervants have made a convert of my booby. His head is fo fill'd with this foolish ftory of a Drummer, that I expect the rogue will be afraid hereafter to go upon a meffage by moon-light. LADY. Ah, Mr. Tinfel, what a lofs of billetdoux would that be to many a fine lady! ABIGA L. Then you still believe this to be a foolish ftory? I thought my Lady had told you, that he had heard it herself. TINSE ́L. Ha, ha, ha! There's manners for you, Madam. [Afide. LADY. Admirably rally'd! that laugh is unanfwerable! now I'll be hang'd if you could forbear being witty upon me, if I should tell you I heard it no longer ago than last night. Fancy! TINSEL. LADY. But what if I should tell you my maid was with me! TINSE L. had Vapours! vapours! pray, my dear widow, will you answer me one queftion? you ever this noife of a drum in your head, all the while your husband was living? LADY. you And pray, Mr. Tinfel, will let me afk you another question; do think we can hear in the country, as well as you do in town? TINSE L. you Believe me, Madam, I could preferibe you a cure for these imaginations. ABIGA L. Don't tell my Lady of imaginations, Sir, I have heard it myself. TINSE L. ABIGA L. Sir, if I am, it is my own fault. TINSE L. Whims! freeks! megrims! indeed, Mrs. Abigal. ABIGA L. Marry, Sir, by your talk one would believe you thought every thing that was good is a megrim, LADY. Why truly I don't very well understand what you mean by your doctrine to me in the garden just now, that every thing we faw was made by chance. A ABIGA L. very pretty subject indeed for a lover to divert his mistress with. LADY. But I fuppofe that was only a tafte of the converfation you would entertain me with after marriage. TINSE L. Oh, I fhall then have time to read you fuch lectures of motions, atoms, and nature -that you fhall learn to think as freely as the best of us, and be convinced in lefs than than a month, that all about us is chancework. LADY. You are a very complaifant perfon indeed; and fo you would make your court to me, by perfuading me that I was made by chance! TINSEL. Ha, ha, ha! well faid, my dear! why, faith, thou wert a very lucky hit, that's certain. LADY. Pray, Mr. Tinfel, where did you learn this way of talking? odd TINSE L. Ah, widow, 'tis your country innocence makes you think it an odd way of talking. LADY. Though you give no credit to stories of apparitions, I hope you believe there are fuch things as fpirits! Simplicity! TINSE L, ABIGA L. I fancy you don't believe women have fouls, d'ye Sir? TINSE L. Foolish enough! LADY I vow, Mr. Tinfel, I'm afraid malicious people will fay I'm in love with an atheist. TINSE L. Oh, my dear, that's an old fashion'd word-I'm a free-thinker, child. ABIGA L. I am fure you are a free speaker. Really, Mr. Tinfel, confidering that you are fo fine a Gentleman, I'm amaz'd where you got all this learning! I wonder it has not fpoil'd your breeding. TINSE L. To tell you the truth, I have not time to look into these dry matters myself, but I am convinced by four or five learned men, whom I fometimes overhear at a coffee-houfe I frequent, that our forefathers were a pack of affes, that the world has been in an error for fome thousands of years, and that all the people upon earth, excepting those two or three worthy gentlemen, are impos'd upon, cheated, bubbled, abus'd, bamboozl'd ABIGA L. Madam, how can you hear fuch a profligate? he talks like the London prodigal. LADY. Why really, I'm a thinking, if there be no fuch things as fpirits, a woman has no occafion for marrying-she need not be afraid to lie by herself. TINSE L. Ah! my dear! are husbands good for nothing but to frighten away fpirits? doft thou |