Enter Sir Harry.
Sir Har. How kind this was, my dear, pretty Mrs. Lovejoy, to leave so much good Company to meet me here alone.
Mrs. Lov. How kind you are to your self Sir Harry, in harbouring so ridiculous a Notion.
Sir Har. Are you resolv'd then, Madam, to let this gay, this proper well-set Person o' mine pine away like a green Sickness Girl, when I have so generously offer'd you two hundred Pound a Year, only to be a little whimsical with you.
Mrs. Lov. Two hundred a year! wou'd you make a Whore of me Sir Harry?
Sir Har. A Whore! have a care, Child, who you reflect upon, a Lady of two hundred a Year, a Whore; Whores are Creatures that wear Pattens and Straw-hats. I'd fain hear any body call a kept Mistress, Whore, while there's Law to be had, if I were she, I'd make 'em severely pay for't.
Mrs. Lov. But pray, Sir Harry, where's the Difference between a common Woman, and one that's kept; they have equally lost their Reputation, and no body of any Character will visit 'em.
Sir Har. Visit 'em! Ladies of different Orders shou'd converse amongst themselves, I know a Set of kept Mistresses that visit one another with all the Ceremony of Countesses, take place of one another according to the Degree of their Keepers, are call'd to one another's Labours, and live in perfect Sister-hood like the Grand Seignor's Seraglio; two of 'em indeed had a violent Quarrel t'other day, but 'twas only about State Affairs, one happening to be a Whig, and t'other a Tory.
Mrs. Lov. Good Sir Harry, what have you seen so loose in my Behaviour to attack me at this rate?
Sir Har. Why, look you, Child, do'st thee consider what an Income two hundred a Year is; some Country Gentlemen han't more to make their Elder Sons Esquires, and raise Portions for eleven awkard Daughters. Besides, my Dear, thou art but a whiffling sort of a Pinnace, I have been proffer'd lovely, large, First Rate Ladies for half the Mony. There's Winny Wag-tail in Channel Row, wou'd have left it to my Generosity; Mrs. Tippet the Furrier's Wife in Walbrook wou'd have taken five hundred Pound down, and Sufan Sigh-fort the quaking Sempstress had n't the Assurance to ask me above the rent of her Shop.——I must tell you, Love, the Nation's over stock'd with Women, I can have a hundred and fifty Furbuloe Scarf-makers for as many Silver Thimbles; and but last Long Vacation, a very considerable Pleader offer'd me his two Daughters for Six and Eight Pence a Night.