Sir Tim.  Can you love?

Cel.  Oh, yes, Sir, many things; I love my Meat, I love abundance of Adorers, I love choice of new Clothes, new Plays; and, like a right Woman, I love to have my Will.

Sir Tim.  Spoke like a well-bred Person, by Fortune:  I see there’s hopes of thee, Celinda; thou wilt in time learn to make a very fashionable Wife, having so much Beauty too.  I see Attracts, and Allurements, wanton Eyes, the languishing turn of the Head, and all That invites to Temptation.

Cel.  Would that please you in a Wife?

Sir Tim.  Please me!  Why, Madam, what do you take me to be? a Sot?—­ a Fool?—­or a dull Italian of the Humour of your Brother?—­No, no, I can assure you, she that marries me, shall have Franchise—­But, my pretty Miss, you must learn to talk a little more—­

Cel.  I have not Wit, and Sense enough, for that.

Sir Tim.  Wit!  Oh la, O la, Wit! as if there were any Wit requir’d in a Woman when she talks; no, no matter for Wit, or Sense:  talk but loud, and a great deal to shew your white Teeth, and smile, and be very confident, and ’tis enough—­Lord, what a Sight ’tis to see a pretty Woman Stand right up an end in the middle of a Room, playing with her Fan, for want of something to keep her in Countenance.  No, she that is mine, I will teach to entertain at another rate.

Nur.  How, Sir?  Why, what do you take my young Mistress to be?

Sir Tim.  A Woman—­and a fine one, and so fine as she ought to permit her self to be seen, and be ador’d.

Nur.  Out upon you, would you expose your Wife? by my troth, and I were she, I know what I wou’d do—­

Sir Tim.  Thou do—­what thou wouldst have done sixty Years ago, thou meanest.

Nur.  Marry come up, for a stinking Knight; worse than I have gone down with you, e’er now—­Sixty Years ago, quoth ye—­As old as I am—­ I live without Surgeons, wear my own Hair, am not in Debt to my Taylor, as thou art, and art fain to kiss his Wife, to persuade her Husband to be merciful to thee—­who wakes thee every Morning with his Clamour and long Bills, at thy Chamber-door.

Sir Tim.  Prithee, good Matron, Peace; I’ll compound with thee.

Nur.  ’Tis more than thou wilt do with thy Creditors, who, poor Souls, despair of a Groat in the Pound for all thou ow’st them, for Points, Lace, and Garniture—­for all, in fine, that makes thee a complete Fop.

Sir Tim.  Hold, hold thy eternal Clack.

Nur.  And when none would trust thee farther, give Judgments for twice the Money thou borrowest, and swear thy self at Age; and lastly—­to patch up your broken Fortune, you wou’d fain marry my sweet Mistress Celinda here—­But, Faith, Sir, you’re mistaken, her Fortune shall not go to the Maintenance of your Misses; which being once sure of, she, poor Soul, is sent down to the Country-house, to learn Housewifery, and live without Mankind, unless she can serve her self with the handsom Steward, or so—­whilst you tear it away in Town, and live like Man and Wife with your Jilt, and are every Day seen in the Glass Coach, whilst your own natural Lady is hardly worth the Hire of a Hack.