Don Ferd. As far as I can, consistently with the honour of our family, you know I will; but there must be no eloping.

Don Ant. And yet, now, you would carry off Clara?

Don Ferd. Ay, that’s a different case!—we never mean that others should act to our sisters and wives as we do to others’.—But, to-morrow, Clara is to be forced into a convent.

Don Ant. Well, and am not I so unfortunately circumstanced? To-morrow, your father forces Louisa to marry Isaac, the Portuguese—but come with me, and we’ll devise something I warrant.

Don Ferd. I must go home.

Don Ant. Well, adieu!

Don Ferd. But, Don Antonio, if you did not love my sister, you have too much honour and friendship to supplant me with Clara——

Air—Don Ant.

Friendship is the bond of reason;
    But if beauty disapprove,
Heaven dissolves all other treason
    In the heart that’s true to love.

The faith which to my friend I swore,
    As a civil oath I view;
But to the charms which I adore,
    ’Tis religion to be true.

[Exit.

Don Ferd. There is always a levity in Antonio’s manner of replying to me on this subject that is very alarming.—’Sdeath, if Clara should love him after all.

Song.

    Though cause for suspicion appears,
      Yet proofs of her love, too, are strong;
    I’m a wretch if I’m right in my fears,
      And unworthy of bliss if I’m wrong.
What heart-breaking torments from jealousy flow,
Ah! none but the jealous—the jealous can know!

    When blest with the smiles of my fair,
      I know not how much I adore:
    Those smiles let another but share,
      And I wonder I prized them no more!
Then whence can I hope a relief from my woe.
When the falser she seems, still the fonder I grow?

[Exit.

Scene III.— A Room in Don Jerome’s House.

Enter Donna Louisa and Duenna.

Don. Louisa. But, my dear Margaret, my charming Duenna, do you think we shall succeed?

Duen. I tell you again, I have no doubt on’t; but it must be instantly put to the trial. Everything is prepared in your room, and for the rest we must trust to fortune.

Don. Louisa. My father’s oath was, never to see me till I had consented to——

Duen. ’Twas thus I overheard him say to his friend, Don Guzman,—I will demand of her to-morrow, once for all, whether she will consent to marry Isaac Mendoza; if she hesitates, I will make a solemn oath never to see or speak to her till she returns to her duty.—These were his words.

Don. Louisa. And on his known obstinate adherence to what he has once said, you have formed this plan for my escape.——But have you secured my maid in our interest?

Duen. She is a party in the whole; but remember, if we succeed, you resign all right and title in little Isaac, the Jew, over to me.