Char. Ay, wherefore do I not, since you never allowed me place in yours? But go, sir, I have no right to stay you; go where your heart directs you; go to the happy, the distinguished fair one.

Charles. Now, by all that's good, you do me wrong: there is no such fair one for me to go to; nor have I an acquaintance among the sex, yourself excepted, which answers to that description.

Char. Indeed!

Charles. In very truth: there then let us drop the subject. May you be happy, though I never can. Char. O Charles! give me your hand: if I have offended you, I ask your pardon: you have been long acquainted with my temper, and know how to bear with its infirmities.

Charles. Thus, my dear Charlotte, let us seal our reconciliation.-[Kissing her hand.]-Bear with thy infirmities! By Heaven, I know not any one failing in thy whole composition, except that of too great a partiality for an undeserving man.

Char. And you are now taking the very course to augment that failing. A thought strikes me: I have a commission that you must absolutely execute for me; I have immediate occasion for the sum of two hundred pounds: you know my fortune is shut up till I am of age; take this paltry box (it contains my ear-rings, and some other baubles I have no use for), carry it to our opposite neighbour, Mr. Stockwell (I don't know where else to apply), leave it as a deposit in his hands, and beg him to accommodate me with the sum.

Charles. Dear Charlotte, what are you about to do? How can you possibly want two hundred pounds?

Char. How can I possibly do without it, you mean? Doesn't every lady want two hundred pounds? Perhaps I have lost it at play; perhaps I mean to win as much to it; perhaps I want it for two hundred different uses.

Charles. Pooh! pooh! all this is nothing; don't I know you never play?

Char. You mistake; I have a spirit to set not only this trifle, but my whole fortune, upon a stake ;therefore make no wry faces, but do as I bid you: you will find Mr. Stockwell a very honourable gen

tleman.

LUCY enters in haste.

Lucy. Dear madam, as I live, here comes the old lady in a hackney-coach.

Char. The old chariot has given her a second tumble: away with you; you know your way out without meeting her: take the box, and do as I desire you.

Charles. I must not dispute your orders. Farewell. [Exeunt Charles and Charlotte.

SCENE XI.

Enter Lady RuSPORT, leaning on Major O'FLA

HERTY's arm.

O'Fla. Rest yourself upon my arm; never spare it;

'tis strong enough: it has stood harder service than you can put it to.

Lucy. Mercy upon me, what is the matter; I am frighten'd out of my wits: has your ladyship had an accident?

L. Rus. O Lucy! the most untoward one in nature: I know not how I shall repair it.

O'Fla. Never go about to repair it, my lady; ev’n build a new one; 'twas but a crazy piece of business at best.

Lucy. Bless me, is the old chariot broke down with you again?

L. Rus. Broke, child? I don't know what might have been broke, if, by great good fortune, this obliging gentleman had not been at hand to assist me.

Lucy. Dear madam, let me run and fetch you a cup of the cordial drops.

L. Rus. Do, Lucy. Alas! sir, ever since I lost my husband, my poor nerves have been shook to pieces: there hangs his beloved picture: that precious relic, and a plentiful jointure, is all that remains to console me for the best of men.

O'Fla. Let me see: i'faith a comely personage; by his fur cloak I suppose he was in the Russian service; and by the gold chain round his neck, I should guess he had been honoured with the order of St. Catharine.

L. Rus. No, no; he meddled with no St. Catharines: that's the habit he wore in his mayoralty; Sir Stephen was lord-mayor of London: but he is gone,

and has left me a poor, weak, solitary widow behind him.

O'Fla. By all means, then, take a strong, able, hearty man to repair his loss: if such a plain fellow as one Dennis O'Flaherty can please you, I think I may venture to say, without any disparagement to the gentleman in the fur-gown there

L. Rus. What are you going to say? Don't shock my ears with any comparisons, I desire.

O'Fla. Not 1, by my soul; I don't believe there's any comparison in the case.

L. Rus. Oh, are you come? Give me the drops; I'm all in a flutter.

O'Fla. Hark'e, sweetheart, what are those same drops have you any more left in the bottle? I did'nt care if I took a little sip of them myself.

Lucy. Oh, sir, they are called the cordial restorative elixir, or the nervous golden drops; they are only for ladies' cases.

O'Fla. Yes, yes, my dear, there are gentlemen as well as ladies that stand in need of those same golden drops; they'd suit my case to a tittle.

L. Rus. Well, major, did you give old Dudley my letter; and will the silly man do as I bid him, and be gone?

O'Fla. You are obeyed; he's on his march.

L. Rus. That's well; you have managed this matter to perfection; I didn't think he would have been so easily prevailed upon.

O'Fla. At the first word; no difficulty in life; 'twas

the very thing he was determined to do, before I came: I never met a more obliging gentleman.

L. Rus. Well, 'tis no matter; so I am but rid of him, and his distresses: would you believe it, Major O'Flaherty, it was but this morning he sent a begging to me for money to fit him out upon some wild-goose expedition to the coast of Africa, I know not where. O'Fla. Well, you sent him what he wanted?

L. Rus. I sent him what he deserved, a flat refusal. O'Fla. You refused him!

L. Rus. Most undoubtedly.

O'Fla. You sent him nothing!

L. Rus. Not a shilling.

O'Fla. Good morning to you-Your servant

[Going. L. Rus. Hey-day! what ails the man? where are you going?

O'Fla. Out of your house, before the roof falls on my head-to poor Dudley, to share the little modicum that thirty years hard service has left me; I wish it was more, for his sake.

L. Rus. Very well, sir; take your course; I sha'n't attempt to stop you: I shall survive it; it will not break my heart if I never see you more.

O'Fla. Break your heart! No, o' my conscience will it not. You preach, and you pray, and you turn up your eyes, and all the while you're as hardhearted as an hyena-An hyena, truly! By my soul, there isn't in the whole creation so savage an animal as a human creature without pity.

[Exit.