LADY! But that, you know, Abigail, is a sign he had been us'd to good company-Then indeed he is very posi tive. ABIGAIL. Positive! why, he contradicts you in every thing you say. LADY. But then, you know, Abigail, he has been educated at the inns of court. ABIGAIL. A blessed education indeed! it has made him forget his catechism! Let him alone, Abigail; so long as he does not call me my dear wife, there's no harm done: TINSEL. I have been most ridiculously diverted since I left you Your servants have made a convert of my booby: his head is so fill'd with this foolish story of a Drummer, that I expect the rogue will be afraid hereafter to go upon a message by moon-light. LADY. Ah! Mr. Tinsel, what a loss of billet-doux would that be to many a fine lady! ABIGAIL. Then you still believe this to be a foolish story? b thought my lady had told you, that she had heard it herself. Ha ha! ha! TINSEL. ABIGAIL. Why, you would not persuade us out of our senses? Admirably rally'd! that laugh is unanswerable! Now I'll be hang'd if you could forbear being witty upon me, if I should tell you I heard it no longer ago than last night. Fancy! TINSEL. LADY. But what if I should tell you my maid was with me! TINSEL. 1 1 answer me one question? Vapours! vapours! pray, my dear widow, will you Had you ever this noise. of a drum in your head, all the while your husband was living? LADY. And, pray, Mr. Tinsel, will you let me ask you another question? Do you think we can hear in the country, as well as you do in town? TINSEL. Believe me, Madam, I could prescribe you a cure for these imaginations. ABIGAIL. Don't tell my lady of imaginations, Sir, I have heard it myself.. Whims! freaks! megrims! indeed, Mrs. Abigail. ABIGAIL. Marry, Sir, by your talk one would believe you thought every thing that was good is a megrim. LADY. Why, truly, I don't very well understand what you meant by your doctrine to me in the garden just now, ABIGAIL. A very pretty subject indeed for a lover to divert his mistress with. LADY. But I suppose that was only a taste of the conversation you would entertain me with after marriage. TINSEL. Oh, I shall then have time to read you such lectures of motions, atoms, and nature-that you shall learn to think as freely as the best of us, and be convinced, in less than a month, that all about us is chance-work. LADY. You are a very complaisant person indeed; and so you would make your court to me, by persuading me that I was made by chance! TINSEL. Ha! ha ha! well said, my dear! why, faith, thou wert a very lucky hit, that's certain. LADY. Pray, Mr. Tinsel, where did you learn this odd way of talking? TINSEL. Ah, widow, 'tis your country innocence makes you think it an odd way of talking. LADY. Though you give no credit to stories of apparitions, TINSEL. Simplicity! (ABIGAIL. I fancy you don't believe women have souls, d'ye Sir? Foolish enough! TINSEL. LADY. I vow, Mr. Tinsel, I'm afraid malicious people will say I'm in love with an atheist. TINSEL. Oh, my dear, that's an old-fashion'd word I'm a Freethinker, child. ABIGAIL. I'm sure you are a free speaker! LADY. Really, Mr. Tinsel, considering that you are so fine a gentleman, I'm amaz'd where you got all this learning! I wonder it has not spoil'd your breeding. TINSEL. To tell you the truth, I have not time to look into these dry matters myself, but I am convinc'd by four or five learned men, whom I sometimes overhear at a coffee-house I frequent, that our forefathers were a pack of asses, that the world has been in an error for some thousands of years, and that all the people upon earth, excepting those two or three worthy gentlemen, are impos'd upon, cheated, bubbled, abus'd, bamboozled |
