MRS. HARDCASTLE. Well, I must retire. Come, Constance, my love. You see, Mr. Hastings, the wretchedness of my situation: was ever poor woman so plagued with a dear sweet, pretty, provoking, undutiful boy? [Exeunt MRS. HARDCASTLE and MISS NEVILLE.]
TONY. (Singing.) “There was a young man riding by, and fain would have his will. Rang do didlo dee.”——Don’t mind her. Let her cry. It’s the comfort of her heart. I have seen her and sister cry over a book for an hour together; and they said they liked the book the better the more it made them cry.
HASTINGS. Then you’re no friend to the ladies, I find, my pretty young gentleman?
TONY. That’s as I find ’um.
HASTINGS. Not to her of your mother’s choosing, I dare answer? And yet she appears to me a pretty well-tempered girl.
TONY. That’s because you don’t know her as well as I. Ecod! I know every inch about her; and there’s not a more bitter cantankerous toad in all Christendom.
HASTINGS. (Aside.) Pretty encouragement this for a lover!
TONY. I have seen her since the height of that. She has as many tricks as a hare in a thicket, or a colt the first day’s breaking.
HASTINGS. To me she appears sensible and silent.
TONY. Ay, before company. But when she’s with her playmate, she’s as loud as a hog in a gate.