Julio. Yes, doubtless—the ladies are too fond of pleasure: I think Don Cæsar is exemplary.
Min. Lord, sir! you'd think it very hard, if you were me, to be locked up all your life; and know nothing of the world but what you could catch through the bars of your balcony.
Julio. Perhaps I might; but, as a man, I am convinced 'tis right. Daughters and wives should be equally excluded those destructive haunts of dissipation. Let them keep to their embroidery, nor ever presume to show their faces but at their own firesides.——This will bring out the Xantippe, surely! [Aside.]
Min. Well, sir, I don't know—to be sure, home, as you say, is the fittest place for women. For my part, I could live for ever at home. I am determined he shall have his way; who knows what may happen? [Aside.]
Julio. [Aside.] By all the powers of caprice, Garcia is as wrong as the other!
Min. I delight in nothing so much as in sitting by my father, and hearing his tales of old times; and I fancy, when I have a husband, I shall be more happy to sit and listen to his stories of present times.
Julio. Perhaps your husband, fair lady, might not be inclined so to amuse you. Men have a thousand delights that call them abroad; and probably your chief amusements would be counting the hours of his absence, and giving a tear to each as it passed.
Min. Well, he should never see them, however. I would always smile when he entered; and if he found my eyes red, I'd say, I had been weeping over the history of the unfortunate damsel, whose true love hung himself at sea, and appeared to her after wards in a wet jacket.—Sure, this will do! [Aside.]
Julio. I am every moment more astonished. Pray, madam, permit me a question. Are you, really—yet I cannot doubt it—are you, really, Donna Olivia, the daughter of Don Cæsar, to whom Don Garcia and Don Vincentio had lately the honour of paying their addresses?
Min. Am I Donna Olivia! ha! ha! ha! what a question! Pray, sir, is this my father's house?—Are you Don Julio?