By Jove, I'll marry!
True. You forget, Sir William,
I do not know the lady.
Sir Wil. Great your loss.
By all the gods I'll marry!--but my daughter
Must needs be married first. She rules my house;
Would rule it still, and will not have me wed.
A clever, handsome, darling, forward minx!
When I became a widower, the reins
Her mother dropped she caught,--a hoyden girl;
Nor, since, would e'er give up; howe'er I strove
To coax or catch them from her. One way still
Or t'other she would keep them--laugh, pout, plead;
Now vanquish me with water, now with fire;
Would box my face, and, ere I well could ope
My mouth to chide her, stop it with a kiss!
The monkey! What a plague she's to me! How
I love her! how I love the Widow Green!
True. Then marry her!
Sir Wil. I tell thee, first of all
Must needs my daughter marry. See I not
A hope of that; she nought affects the sex:
Comes suitor after suitor--all in vain.
Fast as they bow she curtsies, and says, "Nay!"
Or she, a woman, lacks a woman's heart,
Or hath a special taste which none can hit.
True. Or taste, perhaps, which is already hit.
Sir Wil. Eh!--how?
True. Remember you no country friend,
Companion of her walks--her squire to church,
Her beau whenever she went visiting -
Before she came to town?
Sir Wil.
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