you march, my Salopian?
SIR WIL. Lead on, little Tony. I'll follow thee, my Anthony, my

Tantony. Sirrah, thou shalt be my Tantony, and I'll be thy pig.
And a fig for your Sultan and Sophy.

LADY. This will never do. It will never make a match,--at least
before he has been abroad.

SCENE XII.
LADY WISHFORT, WAITWELL disguised as for SIR ROWLAND.

LADY. Dear Sir Rowland, I am confounded with confusion at the
retrospection of my own rudeness,--I have more pardons to ask than

the pope distributes in the year of jubilee. But I hope where there
is likely to be so near an alliance, we may unbend the severity of

decorum, and dispense with a little ceremony.
WAIT. My impatience, madam, is the effect of my transport; and till

I have the possession of your adorable person, I am tantalised on
the rack, and do but hang, madam, on the tenter of expectation.

LADY. You have excess of gallantry, Sir Rowland, and press things
to a conclusion with a most prevailingvehemence. But a day or two

for decency of marriage -
WAIT. For decency of funeral, madam! The delay will break my

heart--or if that should fail, I shall be poisoned. My nephew will
get an inkling of my designs and poison me--and I would willingly

starve him before I die--I would gladly go out of the world with
that satisfaction. That would be some comfort to me, if I could but

live so long as to be revenged on that unnatural viper.
LADY. Is he so unnatural, say you? Truly I would contribute much

both to the saving of your life and the accomplishment of your
revenge. Not that I respect myself; though he has been a perfidious

wretch to me.
WAIT. Perfidious to you?

LADY. O Sir Rowland, the hours that he has died away at my feet,
the tears that he has shed, the oaths that he has sworn, the

palpitations that he has felt, the trances and the tremblings, the
ardours and the ecstasies, the kneelings and the risings, the heart-

heavings and the hand-gripings, the pangs and the pathetic regards
of his protesting eyes!--Oh, no memory can register.

WAIT. What, my rival? Is the rebel my rival? A dies.
LADY. No, don't kill him at once, Sir Rowland: starve him

gradually, inch by inch.
WAIT. I'll do't. In three weeks he shall be barefoot; in a month

out at knees with begging an alms; he shall starveupward and
upward, 'till he has nothing living but his head, and then go out in

a stink like a candle's end upon a save-all.
LADY. Well, Sir Rowland, you have the way,--you are no novice in

the labyrinth of love,--you have the clue. But as I am a person,
Sir Rowland, you must not attribute my yielding to any sinister

appetite or indigestion of widowhood; nor impute my complacency to
any lethargy of continence. I hope you do not think me prone to any

iteration of nuptials?
WAIT. Far be it from me -

LADY. If you do, I protest I must recede, or think that I have made
a prostitution of decorums, but in the vehemence of compassion, and

to save the life of a person of so much importance -
WAIT. I esteem it so -

LADY. Or else you wrong my condescension -
WAIT. I do not, I do not -

LADY. Indeed you do.
WAIT. I do not, fair shrine of virtue.

LADY. If you think the least scruple of causality was an ingredient
-

WAIT. Dear madam, no. You are all camphire and frankincense, all
chastity and odour.

LADY. Or that -
SCENE XIII.

[To them] FOIBLE.
FOIB. Madam, the dancers are ready, and there's one with a letter,

who must deliver it into your own hands.
LADY. Sir Rowland, will you give me leave? Think favourably, judge

candidly, and conclude you have found a person who would suffer
racks in honour's cause, dear Sir Rowland, and will wait on you

incessantly.
SCENE XIV.

WAITWELL, FOIBLE.
WAIT. Fie, fie! What a slavery have I undergone; spouse, hast thou

any cordial? I want spirits.
FOIB. What a washy rogue art thou, to pant thus for a quarter of an

hour's lying and swearing to a fine lady?
WAIT. Oh, she is the antidote to desire. Spouse, thou wilt fare

the worse for't. I shall have no appetite to iteration of nuptials-
-this eight-and-forty hours. By this hand I'd rather be a chairman

in the dog-days than act Sir Rowland till this time to-morrow.
SCENE XV.

[To them] LADY with a letter.
LADY. Call in the dancers; Sir Rowland, we'll sit, if you please,

and see the entertainment. [Dance.] Now, with your permission, Sir
Rowland, I will peruse my letter. I would open it in your presence,

because I would not make you uneasy. If it should make you uneasy,
I would burn it--speak if it does--but you may see, the

superscription is like a woman's hand.
FOIB. By heaven! Mrs. Marwood's, I know it,--my heart aches--get

it from her! [To him.]
WAIT. A woman's hand? No madam, that's no woman's hand: I see

that already. That's somebody whose throat must be cut.
LADY. Nay, Sir Rowland, since you give me a proof of your passion

by your jealousy, I promise you I'll make a return by a frank
communication. You shall see it--we'll open it together. Look you

here. [Reads.] MADAM, THOUGH UNKNOWN TO YOU (look you there, 'tis
from nobody that I know.) I HAVE THAT HONOUR FOR YOUR CHARACTER,

THAT I THINK MYSELF OBLIGED TO LET YOU KNOW YOU ARE ABUSED. HE WHO
PRETENDS TO BE SIR ROWLAND IS A CHEAT AND A RASCAL. O heavens!

what's this?
FOIB. Unfortunate; all's ruined.

WAIT. How, how, let me see, let me see. [Reading.] A RASCAL, AND
DISGUISED AND SUBORNED FOR THAT IMPOSTURE--O villainy! O villainy!--

BY THE CONTRIVANCE OF -
LADY. I shall faint, I shall die. Oh!

FOIB. Say 'tis your nephew's hand. Quickly, his plot, swear, swear
it! [To him.]

WAIT. Here's a villain! Madam, don't you perceive it? Don't you
see it?

LADY. Too well, too well. I have seen too much.
WAIT. I told you at first I knew the hand. A woman's hand? The

rascal writes a sort of a large hand: your Roman hand.--I saw there
was a throat to be cut presently. If he were my son, as he is my

nephew, I'd pistol him.
FOIB. O treachery! But are you sure, Sir Rowland, it is his

writing?
WAIT. Sure? Am I here? Do I live? Do I love this pearl of India?

I have twenty letters in my pocket from him in the same character.
LADY. How?

FOIB. Oh, what luck it is, Sir Rowland, that you were present at
this juncture! This was the business that brought Mr. Mirabell

disguised to Madam Millamant this afternoon. I thought something
was contriving, when he stole by me and would have hid his face.

LADY. How, how? I heard the villain was in the house indeed; and
now I remember, my niece went away abruptly when Sir Wilfull was to

have made his addresses.
FOIB. Then, then, madam, Mr. Mirabell waited for her in her

chamber; but I would not tell your ladyship to discompose you when