Welcome, Don Garcia! why, you are rather before your time.
Gar. Gallantry forbid that I should not, when a fair lady is concerned. Should Donna Olivia welcome me as frankly as you do, I shall think I have been tardy.
Cæsar. When you made your overtures, signor, I understood it was from inclination to be allied to my family, not from a particular passion to my daughter. Have you ever seen her?
Gar. But once—that transiently—yet sufficient to convince me that she is charming.
Cæsar. Why, yes, though I say it, there are few prettier women in Madrid; and she has got enemies amongst her own sex accordingly. They pretend to say that——I say, sir, they have reported that she is not blessed with that kind of docility and gentleness that a——now, though she may not be so very placid, and insipid, as some young women, yet, upon the whole—
Gar. Oh, fie, sir!—not a word—a beauty cannot be ill-tempered; gratified vanity keeps her in good humour with herself, and every body about her.
Cæsar. Yes, as you say—vanity is a prodigious sweetener; and Olivia, considering how much she has been humoured, is as gentle and pliant as——
Enter Minette, r.
Min. Oh, sir! shield me from my mistress—She is in one of her old tempers—the whole house is in an uproar.—I cannot support it!
Cæsar. Hush!