Lady Am. Thou dost mistake—To need my assistance is the highest claim to my attention; let me see her. [Exit Banks.] I could chide myself that these pastimes have turned my eye from the house of woe. Ah! think, ye proud and happy affluent, how many, in your dancing moments, pine in want, drink the salt tear; their morsel, the bread of misery, and shrinking from the cold blast into their cheerless hovels.
Enter Banks, leading in Amelia.
Banks. Madam, my sister.
[Bows and retires.
Lady Am. Thou art welcome—I feel myself interested in thy concerns.
Amelia. Madam!
Lady Am. I judge, thou wert not always unhappy.—Tell me thy condition, then I shall better know how to serve thee. Is thy brother thy sole kindred?
Amelia. I had a husband, and a son.
Lady Am. A widow! If it recall not images thou wouldst forget, impart to me thy story—'Tis rumoured in the village, thy brother is a clergyman—tell me.
Amelia. Madam, he was; but he has lost his early patron, and is now poor and unbeneficed.