Scene XIV.

Love for Love

by William Congreve

MRS FRAIL, MRS FORESIGHT.

MRS FRAIL
O sister, had you come a minute sooner, you would
have seen the resolution of a lover: --honest Tar and I are
parted;--and with the same indifference that we met. O' my life I am
half vexed at the insensibility of a brute that I despised.

MRS FORESIGHT
What then, he bore it most heroically?

MRS FRAIL
Most tyrannically; for you see he has got the
start of me, and I, the poor forsaken maid, am left complaining on
the shore. But I'll tell you a hint that he has given me: Sir
Sampson is enraged, and talks desperately of committing matrimony
himself. If he has a mind to throw himself away, he can't do it more
effectually than upon me, if we could bring it about.

MRS FORESIGHT
Oh, hang him, old fox, he's too cunning;
besides, he hates both you and me. But I have a project in my head
for you, and I have gone a good way towards it. I have almost made a
bargain with Jeremy, Valentine's man, to sell his master to us.

MRS FRAIL
Sell him? How?

MRS FORESIGHT
Valentine raves upon Angelica, and took me for
her, and Jeremy says will take anybody for her that he imposes on
him. Now, I have promised him mountains, if in one of his mad fits
he will bring you to him in her stead, and get you married together
and put to bed together; and after consummation, girl, there's no
revoking. And if he should recover his senses, he'll be glad at least
to make you a good settlement. Here they come: stand aside a
little, and tell me how you like the design.