Oliv. Well, I confess, Victoria, I hardly know whether most to blame or praise you; but, with the rest of the world, I suppose, your success will determine me.
Enter Gasper, l.
Gasp. Pray, madam, are your wedding shoes ready? [To Olivia.]
Oliv. Insolence!——I can scarcely ever keep up the vixen to this fellow. [Apart to Victoria.]
Gasp. You'll want them, ma'am, to-morrow morning, that's all—so I came to prepare ye.
Oliv. I want wedding shoes to-morrow! if you are kept on water gruel till I marry, that plump face of yours will be chap-fallen, I believe.
Gasp. Yes, truly, I believe so too. Lackaday, did you suppose I came to bring you news of your own wedding? no such glad tidings for you, lady, believe me.—You married! I am sure the man who ties himself to you, ought to be half a salamander, and able to live in fire.
Oliv. What marriage, then, is it, you do me the honour to inform me of?
Gasp. Why, your father's marriage. You'll have a mother-in-law to-morrow, and having, like a dutiful daughter, danced at the wedding, be immured in a convent for life.
Oliv. Immured in a convent! then I'll raise sedition in the sisterhood, depose the abbess, and turn the confessor's chair to a go-cart.