(Enter Engelke.)
ENGELKE. Oh, God help me, poor creature! Now I see that all hope is gone.
HENRICH. Oh, my young lady, is this the time to weep, when your parents have come into such good fortune?
ENGELKE. Hold your tongue, Henrich, I don't want to be "my young lady."
HENRICH. What are you going to be, then? You're not a mere maiden, so you must be a young lady. That is surely the next degree of honor to which you rise when you lose your maidenhood.
ENGELKE. I had rather be a peasant's daughter. Then I could be sure of getting the man on whom I have set my heart.
HENRICH. Oh, is that all the young lady is crying about—that she wants to get married? Now she can get married in the shortest possible time to any man she points at, for half the town will besiege the house to be a burgomaster's son-in-law.
ENGELKE. I won't have any one but Antonius, whom I've already promised to marry.
HENRICH. Fie, Mamsell! Will you take a wheelwright now, a man I can scarcely associate with,—I, who am only a reutendiener? You should have a higher sense of honor after this.
ENGELKE. Be quiet, you lout! I would give up my life rather than let myself be forced to marry any one else.