Re-enter 2nd Sailor.
2nd Sail. Here is a woman, an't like your honour, scolds and bustles with us, to come in, as much as a seaman's widow at the Navy office: her name is Mrs. Blackacre.
Man. That fiend too!
Free. The Widow Blackacre, is it not? that litigious she petty-fogger, who is at law and difference with all the world; but I wish I could make her agree with me in the church. They say she has fifteen hundred pounds a year jointure, and the care of her son, that is, the destruction of his estate.
Man. Her lawyers, attorneys, and solicitors, have fifteen hundred pounds a year, whilst she is contented to be poor, to make other people so. For she is as vexatious as her father was, the great attorney, nay, as a dozen Norfolk attorneys, and as implacable an adversary as a wife suing for alimony, or a parson for his tithes; and she loves an Easter term, or any term, not as other country ladies do, to come up to be fine, cuckold their husbands, and take their pleasure; for she has no pleasure but in vexing others, and is usually clothed and daggled[97] like a bawd in disguise, pursued through alleys by sergeants. When she is in town, she lodges in one of the inns of Chancery, where she breeds her son, and is herself his tutoress in law-French; and for her country abode, though she has no estate there, she chooses Norfolk.—But, bid her come in, with a pox to her! she is Olivia's kinswoman, and may make me amends for her visit, by some discourse of that dear woman. [Exit Sailor.
Enter Widow Blackacre, with a mantle and a green bag, and several papers in the other hand; Jerry Blackacre in a gown, laden with green bags, following her.
Wid. I never had so much to do with a judge's door-keeper, as with yours; but—
Man. But the incomparable Olivia, how does she since I went?
Wid. Since you went, my suit—
Man. Olivia, I say, is she well?