Come, prepare, prepare; your Lover is coming.
Letit. My Lover!—Confess now that my absence at dinner was a severe mortification to him.
Mrs. Rack. I can't absolutely swear it spoilt his appetite; he eat as if he was hungry, and drank his wine as though he liked it.
Letit. What was the apology?
Mrs. Rack. That you were ill;—but I gave him a hint, that your extreme bashfulness could not support his eye.
Letit. If I comprehend him, aukwardness and bashfulness are the last faults he can pardon in a woman; so expect to see me transform'd into the veriest maukin.
Mrs. Rack. You persevere then?
Letit. Certainly. I know the design is a rash one, and the event important;—it either makes Doricourt mine by all the tenderest ties of passion, or deprives me of him for ever; and never to be his wife will afflict me less, than to be his wife and not be belov'd.
Mrs. Rack. So you wo'n't trust to the good old maxim—"Marry first, and love will follow?"
Letit. As readily as I would venture my last guinea, that good fortune might follow. The woman that has not touch'd the heart of a man before he leads her to the altar, has scarcely a chance to charm it when possession and security turn their powerful arms against her.—But here he comes.—I'll disappear for a moment.—Don't spare me.