my blood freeze again.

MISS HARDCASTLE. He treated me with diffidence and respect; censured
the manners of the age; admired the prudence of girls that never
laughed; tired me with apologies for being tiresome; then left the room
with a bow, and "Madam, I would not for the world detain you."

HARDCASTLE. He spoke to me as if he knew me all his life before;
asked twenty questions, and never waited for an answer; interrupted my
best remarks with some silly pun; and when I was in my best story of
the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, he asked if I had not a good
hand at making punch. Yes, Kate, he asked your father if he was a
maker of punch!

MISS HARDCASTLE. One of us must certainly be mistaken.

HARDCASTLE. If he be what he has shown himself, I'm determined he
shall never have my consent.

MISS HARDCASTLE. And if he be the sullen thing I take him, he shall
never have mine.

HARDCASTLE. In one thing then we are agreed--to reject him.

MISS HARDCASTLE. Yes: but upon conditions. For if you should find him
less impudent, and I more presuming--if you find him more respectful,
and I more importunate--I don't know--the fellow is well enough for a
man--Certainly, we don't meet many such at a horse-race in the country.

HARDCASTLE. If we should find him so----But that's impossible. The
first appearance has done my business. I'm seldom deceived in that.

MISS HARDCASTLE. And yet there may be many good qualities under that
first appearance.

HARDCASTLE. Ay, when a girl finds a fellow's outside to her taste, she
then sets about guessing the rest of his furniture. With her, a smooth
face stands for good sense, and a genteel figure for every virtue.

MISS HARDCASTLE. I hope, sir, a conversation begun with a compliment
to my good sense, won't end with a sneer at my understanding?

HARDCASTLE. Pardon me, Kate. But if young Mr. Brazen can find the art
of reconciling contradictions, he may please us both, perhaps.

MISS HARDCASTLE. And as one of us must be mistaken, what if we go to
make further discoveries?

HARDCASTLE. Agreed. But depend on't I'm in the right.

MISS HARDCASTLE. And depend on't I'm not much in the wrong.
[Exeunt.]

Enter Tony, running in with a casket.

TONY. Ecod! I have got them. Here they are. My cousin Con's
necklaces, bobs and all. My mother shan't cheat the poor souls out of
their fortin neither. O! my genus, is that you?

Enter HASTINGS.

HASTINGS.