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O ma'am, here is Sir Anthony Absolute just come home with your aunt.
LYDIA
They'll not come here.--Lucy, do you watch.
[Exit LUCY.]
JULIA
Yet I must go. Sir Anthony does not know I am here, and if we meet,
he'll detain me, to show me the town. I'll take another opportunity of
paying my respects to Mrs. Malaprop, when she shall treat me, as long
as she chooses, with her select words so ingeniously misapplied,
without being mispronounced.
[Re-enter LUCY.]
LUCY
O Lud! ma'am, they are both coming up stairs.
LYDIA
Well, I'll not detain you, coz.--Adieu, my dear Julia. I'm sure you are
in haste to send to Faulkland.--There--through my room you'll find
another staircase.
JULIA
Adieu! [Embraces LYDIA, and exit.]
LYDIA
Here, my dear Lucy, hide these books. Quick, quick!--Fling _Peregrine
Pickle_ under the toilet--throw _Roderick Random_ into the closet--put
_The Innocent Adultery_ into _The Whole Duty of Man_--thrust _Lord
Aimworth_ under the sofa--cram _Ovid_ behind the bolster--there--put
_The Man of Feeling_ into your pocket--so, so--now lay _Mrs. Chapone_
in sight, and leave _Fordyce's Sermons_ open on the table.
LUCY
O burn it, ma'am! the hair-dresser has torn away as far as _Proper
Pride_.
LYDIA
Never mind--open at _Sobriety_.--Fling me _Lord Chesterfields
Letters_.--Now for 'em.
[Exit LUCY.]
[Enter Mrs. MALAPROP, and Sir ANTHONY ABSOLUTE.]
Mrs. MALAPROP
There, Sir Anthony, there sits the deliberate simpleton who wants to
disgrace her family, and lavish herself on a fellow not worth a
shilling.
LYDIA
Madam, I thought you once----
Mrs. MALAPROP
You thought, miss! I don't know any business you have to think at
all--thought does not become a young woman. But the point we would
request of you is, that you will promise to forget this fellow--to
illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory.
LYDIA
Ah, madam! our memories are independent of our wills. It is not so easy
to forget.
Mrs. MALAPROP
But I say it is, miss; there is nothing on earth so easy as to forget,
if a person chooses to set about it. I'm sure I have as much forgot
your poor dear uncle as if he had never existed--and I thought it my
duty so to do; and let me tell you, Lydia, these violent memories don't
become a young woman.
Sir ANTHONY
Why sure she won't pretend to remember what she's ordered not!--ay,
this comes of her reading!
LYDIA
What crime, madam, have I committed, to be treated thus?
Mrs. MALAPROP
Now don't attempt to extirpate yourself from the matter; you know I
have proof controvertible of it.--But tell me, will you promise to do
as you're bid? Will you take a husband of your friends' choosing?
LYDIA
Madam, I must tell you plainly, that had I no preferment for any one
else, the choice you have made would be my aversion.
Mrs. MALAPROP
What business have you, miss, with preference and aversion? They don't
become a young woman; and you ought to know, that as both always wear
off, 'tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion. I am
sure I hated your poor dear uncle before marriage as if he'd been a
blackamoor--and yet, miss, you are sensible what a wife I made!--and
when it pleased Heaven to release me from him, 'tis unknown what tears
I shed!--But suppose we were going to give you another choice, will you
promise us to give up this Beverley?
LYDIA
Could I belie my thoughts so far as to give that promise, my actions