iness.

FLINT
You have not seen that idle fellow, Davenport?

MARIAN
No, indeed, father, since your injunction.

FLINT
I take but my lawful profit. The law is not over favourable to us.

MARIAN
Marian is no judge of these things.

FLINT
They call me oppressive, grinding.--I know not what--

MARIAN
Alas!

FLINT
Usurer, extortioner. Am I these things?

MARIAN
You are Marian's kind and careful father. That is enough for a child to
know.

FLINT
Here, girl, is a little box of jewels, which the necessities of a
foolish woman of quality have transferred into our true and lawful
possession. Go, place them with the trinkets that were your mother's.
They are all yours, Marian, if you do not cross me in your marriage. No
gentry shall match into this house, to flout their wife hereafter with
her parentage. I will hold this business with convulsive grasp to my
dying day. I will plague these _poor_, whom you speak so tenderly of.

MARIAN
You frighten me, father. Do not frighten Marian.

FLINT
I have heard them say, There goes Flint--Flint, the cruel pawnbroker!

MARIAN
Stay at home with Marian. You shall hear no ugly words to vex you.

FLINT
You shall ride in a gilded chariot upon the necks of these _poor_,
Marian. Their tears shall drop pearls for my girl. Their sighs shall be
good wind for us. They shall blow good for my girl. Put up the jewels,
Marian. [_Exit_.]

_Enter Lucy_.

LUCY
Miss, miss, your father has taken his hat, and is slept out, and Mr.
Davenport is on the stairs; and I came to tell you--

MARIAN
Alas! who let him in?

_Enter Davenport_.

DAVENPORT
My dearest girl--

MARIAN
My father will kill me, if he finds you have been here!

DAVENPORT
There is no time for explanations. I have positive information that your
father means, in less than a week, to dispose of you to that ugly
Saunders. The wretch has bragged of it to his acquaintance, and already
calls you _his_.

MARIAN
O heavens!

DAVENPORT
Your resolution must be summary, as the time which calls for it. Mine or
his you must be, without delay. There is no safety for you under this
roof.

MARIAN
My father--

DAVENPORT
Is no father, if he would sacrifice you.

MARIAN
But he is unhappy. Do not speak hard words of my father.

DAVENPORT
Marian must exert her good sense.

LUCY
(_As if watching at the window._) O, miss, your father has suddenly
returned. I see him with Mr. Saunders, coming down the street. Mr.
Sa