Dor. Come, my dear, we’ll talk of something else.

Mrs. Sul. O Dorinda! I own myself a woman, full of my sex, a gentle, generous soul, easy and yielding to soft desires; a spacious heart, where love and all his train might lodge. And must the fair apartment of my breast be made a stable for a brute to lie in?

Dor. Meaning your husband, I suppose?

Mrs. Sul. Husband! no; even husband is too soft a name for him.—But, come, I expect my brother here to-night or tomorrow; he was abroad when my father married me; perhaps he’ll find a way to make me easy.

Dor. Will you promise not to make yourself easy in the meantime with my lord’s friend?

Mrs. Sul. You mistake me, sister. It happens with us as among the men, the greatest talkers are the greatest cowards? and there’s a reason for it; those spirits evaporate in prattle, which might do more mischief if they took another course.—Though, to confess the truth, I do love that fellow;—and if I met him dressed as he should be, and I undressed as I should be—look’ee, sister, I have no supernatural gifts—I can’t swear I could resist the temptation; though I can safely promise to avoid it; and that’s as much as the best of us can do.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.—A Room in Boniface’s Inn

Enter Aimwell and Archer laughing.

Arch. And the awkward kindness of the good motherly old gentlewoman—

Aim. And the coming easiness of the young one—’Sdeath, ’tis pity to deceive her!

Arch. Nay, if you adhere to these principles, stop where you are.

Aim. I can’t stop; for I love her to distraction.

Arch. ’Sdeath, if you love her a hair’s-breadth beyond discretion, you must go no further.

Aim. Well, well, anything to deliver us from sauntering away our idle evenings at White’s, Tom’s, or Will’s, and be stinted to bare looking at our old acquaintance, the cards; because our impotent pockets can’t afford us a guinea for the mercenary drabs.

Arch. Or be obliged to some purse-proud coxcomb for a scandalous bottle, where we must not pretend to our share of the discourse, because we can’t pay our club o’ th’ reckoning.—Damn it, I had rather sponge upon Morris, and sup upon a dish of bohea scored behind the door!

Aim. And there expose our want of sense by talking criticisms, as we should our want of money by railing at the government.

Arch. Or be obliged to sneak into the side-box, and between both houses steal two acts of a play, and because we han’t money to see the other three, we come away discontented, and damn the whole five.

Aim. And ten thousand such rascally tricks—had we outlived our fortunes among our acquaintance.—But now—

Arch. Ay, now is the time to prevent all this:—strike while the iron is hot.—This priest is the luckiest part of our adventure; he shall marry you, and pimp for me.