All. (The gentlemen rising.) You!
Che. You, Jessy!
Miss Mea. I am the lady of this house; and you, sir, have promised to marry the object of your aversion—an heiress. To avoid the importunities of heartless fortune-hunters, and in the hope to be loved for myself alone, I have resided at the cottage adjacent with my worthy relative in seclusion. Now you can comprehend my indignation, when I discovered that you were using the same means that I had selected, to gain my future happiness.
Che. And you shall be happy, if my affection can make you so. I have seen the errors of married men, and will avoid them; you shall be treated with that attention that you are entitled to demand. I will neither harrass you with ill-temper, render you miserable by dissipation, nor insult you by slighting your society; but strive with all my heart to make you as happy as I am sure you deserve to be.
Dam. Oh, mighty fine, mighty fine—you’ll tell a different story in a few months! Oh! what an unhappy set of wretches we shall all be shortly!
Listen while I your miseries rehearse,
Prose can’t express them, I must speak in verse!
Miss Coy.
Pray hold your tongue—your arguments can’t shake us,
’Tis time for troubles when they overtake us;