Helen. Authority!—Ho! what, you think to marry me by force! do ye my lord?
Lord A. They are resolute, and if you continue obstinate—
Helen. I dare say your lordship’s education hasn’t precluded your knowledge of a very true, though rather vulgar proverb, “one man may lead a horse to the water, but twenty can’t make him drink.”
Lord A. The allusion may be classical, madam, though certainly it is not very elegant, nor has it even the advantage of being applicable to the point in question. However I do not despair to see this resolution changed. In the mean time, I did not think it in your nature to treat any man who loves you with cruelty and scorn.
Helen. Then why don’t you desist, my lord? If you’d take an answer, you had a civil one: but if you will follow and teaze one, like a sturdy beggar in the street, you must expect at last a reproof for your impertinence.
Lord A. Yet even in their case perseverance often obtains what was denied to poverty.
Helen. Yes, possibly, from the feeble or the vain; but genuine Charity, and her sister, Love, act only from their own generous impulse, and scorn intimidation.
Enter Tiffany.
Tiffany. Are you alone, madam?
Helen. No; I was only wishing to be so.