Letit. This is the most awful moment of my life. Oh, Doricourt, the slight action of taking off my mask stamps me the most blest or miserable of women! Doric. What can this mean? Reveal your face, I conjure you. Letit. Behold it. Doric. Rapture! Transport! Heaven! Flut. Now for a touch of the happy madman. Letit. This little stratagem arose from my disappointment in not having made the impression on you Î wished. The timidity of the English character threw a veil over me you could not penetrate. You have forced me to emerge in some measure from my natural reserve, and to throw off the veil that hid me. Doric. I am yet in a state of intoxication-I cannot answer you.-Speak on, sweet angel! Letit. You see I can be any thing; chuse then my character your taste shall fix it. Shall I be an English wife?—or, breaking from the bonds of nature and education, step forth to the world in all the captivating glare of foreign manners? Doric. You shall be nothing but yourself-nothing can be captivating that you are not. I will not wrong your penetration, by pretending that you won my heart at the first interview; but you have now my whole soul-your person, your face, your mind, I would not exchange for those of any other woman breathing. Hardy. A dog! how well he makes up for past slights! Cousin Rackett, I wish you a good husband, with all my heart. Mr. Flutter, I'll believe every word you say this fortnight. Mr. Villers, you and I have managed this to a T. I never was so merry in my life 'Gad, I believe I can dance. [Footing.] Come into the next room; I have ordered out every drop of my forty-eight, and I'll invite the whole parish of St. George's, but what we'll drink it out-except one dozen, which I shall keep under three double locks, for a certain christening, that I foresee will happen within this twelvemonth. Doric. Charming, charming creature! Letit. Congratulate me, my dear friends! Can you conceive my happiness? Hardy. No, congratulate me; for mine is the greatest. Flut. No, congratulate me, that I have escaped with life, and give me some sticking plaister—this wild cat has torn the skin from my throat. Sir G. I expect to be among the first who are congratulated for I have recovered one angel, while Doricourt has gained another. Hardy. Pho! pho! Don't talk of angels, we shall be happier by half as mortals. Doric. My charming bride! It was a strange perversion of taste, that led me to consider the delicate timidity of your deportment as the mark of an uninformed mind, or inelegant manners. I feel now it is to that innate modesty, English husbands owe a felicity the married men of other nations are strangers to; it is a sacred veil to your own charms; it is the surest bulwark to your husband's honour; and cursed be the hour-should it ever arrive-in which British ladies shall sacrifice to foreign graces the grace of modesty! THE END. |