SIR HARCOURT. This cool room will recove...

SIR HARCOURT. This cool room will recover you.

LADY GAY. Excuse my trusting to you for support.

SIR HARCOURT. I am transported! Allow me thus ever to support this lovely burden, and I shall conceive that Paradise is regained.

They sit.

LADY GAY. Oh! Sir Harcourt, I feel very faint.

SIR HARCOURT. The waltz made you giddy.

LADY GAY. And I have left my salts in the other room.

SIR HARCOURT. I always carry a flacon, for the express accommodation of the fair sex. {Producing a smelling-bottle.)

LADY GAY. Thank you - ah! {She sighs.)

SIR HARCOURT. What a sigh was there!

LADY GAY. The vapour of consuming grief.

SIR HARCOURT. Grief? Is it possible, have you a grief? Are you unhappy? Dear me!

LADY GAY. Am I not married?

SIR HARCOURT. What a horrible state of existence!

LADY GAY. I am never contradicted, so there are none of those enlivening, interesting little differences, which so pleasingly diversify the monotony of conjugal life, like spots of verdure - no quarrels, like oases in the desert of matri- mony - no rows.

SIR HARCOURT. How Vulgar! what a brute!

LADY GAY. I never have anything but my own way; and he won't permit me to spend more than Iike.

SIR HARCOURT. Mean-Spirited wretch!

LADY GAY. How Can I help being miserable?

SIR HARCOURT. Miserable? I wonder you are not in a lunatic asylum, with such unheard-of barbarism!

LADY GAY. But worse than all that!

SIR HARCOURT. Can it be out-heroded?

LADY GAY. Yes, I could forgive that - I do - it is my duty. But only imagine - picture to yourself, my dear Sir Harcourt, though I, the third daughter of an Earl, married him out of pity for his destitute and helpless situation as a bachelor with ten thousand a year - conceive, if you can - he actually permits me, with the most placid indifference, to flirt with any old fool I may meet.

SIR HARCOURT. Good gracious! miserable idiot!

LADY GAY. I fear there is an incompatibility of temper, which renders a separation inevitable.

SIR HARCOURT. Indispensable, my dear madam! Ah! had I been the happy possessor of such a realm of bliss - what a beautiful eternity unfolds itself to my extending imagination! Had another man but looked at you, I should have annihil- ated him at once; and if he had the temerity to speak, his life alone could have expiated his crime

LADY GAY. Oh, an existence of such a nature is too bright for the eye of thought - too sweet to bear reflection.

SIR HARCOURT. My devotion, eternal, deep -

LADY GAY. Oh, Sir Harcourt!

SIR HARCOURT {more fervently). Your every thought should be a separate study, - each wish forestalled by the quick apprehension of a kindred soul.

LADY GAY. Alas! how can I avoid my fate?

SIR HARCOURT. If a life - a heart - were offered to your astonished view by one who is considered the index of fashion - the vane of the beau monde, - if you saw him at your feet, begging, beseeching your acceptance of all, and more than this, what would your answer -

LADY GAY. Ah! I know of none so devoted!

SIR HARCOURT. You do! {Throwing himself upon his knees.) Behold Sir Harcourt Courtly!

[MEDDLE jumps Up in the chair.]

LADY GAY {aside). Ha! ha! Yoicks! Puss has broken cover.

SIR HARCOURT. Speak, adored, dearest Lady Gay! - speak - will you fly from the tyranny, the wretched misery of such a monster's roof, and accept the soul which lives but in your presence!

LADY GAY. Do not press me. Oh, spare a weak, yielding woman, - be contented to know that you are, alas ! too dear to me. But the world - the world would say -

SIR HARCOURT. Let US be a precedent, to open a more extended and liberal view of matrimonial advantages to society.

LADY GAY. How irresistible is your argument! Oh! pause!

SIR HARCOURT. I have ascertained for a fact, every trades- man of mine lives with his wife, and thus you see it has become a vulgar and plebeian custom.

LADY GAY. Leave me; I feel I cannot withstand yom: powers of persuasion. Swear that you will never forsake me.

SIR HARCOURT. Dictate the oath. May I grow wrinkled, - may two inches be added to the circumference of my waist, - may I lose the fall in my back, - may I be old and ugly the instant I forego one tithe of adoration!

LADY GAY. I must believe you.

SIR HARCOURT. Shall we leave this detestable spot - this horrible vicinity?

LADY GAY. The sooner the better; tomorrow evening let it be. Now let me return; my absence will be remarked. {He kisses her hand.) Do I appear confused? Has my agitation rendered me unfit to enter the room?

SIR HARCOURT. More angelic by a lovely tinge of heightened colour.

Lady GAY. Tomorrow, in this room which opens on the lawn.

SIR HARCOURT. At eleven o'clock.]

LADY GAY. Have your carriage in waiting, and four horses. Remember please, be particular to have four; don't let the affair come off shabbily. Adieu, dear Sir Harcourt!

Exit.

SIR HARCOURT. Veni, vidi, vici! Hannibal, Caesar, Napoleon, Alexander never completed so fair a conquest in so short a time. She dropped fascinated. This is an unprecedented example of the irresistible force of personal appearance combined with polished address. Poor creature! how she loves me! I pity so prostrating a passion, and ought to return it, I will; it is a duty I owe to society and fashion.

Exit.

London Assurance