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JULIA
I don't wonder at it!
LYDIA
Now--sad reverse!--what have I to expect, but, after a deal of flimsy
preparation with a bishop's license, and my aunt's blessing, to go
simpering up to the altar; or perhaps be cried three times in a country
church, and have an unmannerly fat clerk ask the consent of every
butcher in the parish to join John Absolute and Lydia Languish,
spinster! Oh that I should live to hear myself called spinster!
JULIA
Melancholy indeed!
LYDIA
How mortifying, to remember the dear delicious shifts I used to be put
to, to gain half a minute's conversation with this fellow! How often
have I stole forth, in the coldest night in January, and found him in
the garden, stuck like a dripping statue! There would he kneel to me in
the snow, and sneeze and cough so pathetically! he shivering with cold
and I with apprehension! and while the freezing blast numbed our
joints, how warmly would he press me to pity his flame, and glow with
mutual ardour!--Ah, Julia, that was something like being in love.
JULIA
If I were in spirits, Lydia, I should chide you only by laughing
heartily at you; but it suits more the situation of my mind, at
present, earnestly to entreat you not to let a man, who loves you with
sincerity, suffer that unhappiness from your caprice, which I know too
well caprice can inflict.
LYDIA
O Lud! what has brought my aunt here?
[Enter Mrs. MALAPROP, FAG, and DAVID.]
Mrs. MALAPROP
So! so! here's fine work!--here's fine suicide, parricide, and
simulation, going on in the fields! and Sir Anthony not to be found to
prevent the antistrophe!
JULIA
For Heaven's sake, madam, what's the meaning of this?
Mrs. MALAPROP
That gentleman can tell you--'twas he enveloped the affair to me.
LYDIA
[To FAG.] Do, sir, will you, inform us?
FAG
Ma'am, I should hold myself very deficient in every requisite that
forms the man of breeding, if I delayed a moment to give all the
information in my power to a lady so deeply interested in the affair as
you are.
LYDIA
But quick! quick sir!
FAG
True, ma'am, as you say, one should be quick in divulging matters of
this nature; for should we be tedious, perhaps while we are flourishing
on the subject, two or three lives may be lost!
LYDIA
O patience!--Do, ma'am, for Heaven's sake! tell us what is the matter?
Mrs. MALAPROP
Why, murder's the matter! slaughter's the matter! killing's the
matter!--but he can tell you the perpendiculars.
LYDIA
Then, prithee, sir, be brief.
FAG
Why, then, ma'am, as to murder--I cannot take upon me to say--and as to
slaughter, or manslaughter, that will be as the jury finds it.
LYDIA
But who, sir--who are engaged in this?
FAG
Faith, ma'am, one is a young gentleman whom I should be very sorry any
thing was to happen to--a very pretty behaved gentleman! We have lived
much together, and always on terms.
LYDIA
But who is this? who! who! who?
FAG
My master, ma'am--my master--I speak of my master.
LYDIA
Heavens! What, Captain Absolute!
Mrs. MALAPROP
Oh, to be sure, you are frightened now!
JULIA
But who are with him, sir?