My dear friend, how have you managed with your mother? I
hope you have amused her with pretending love for your cousin, and that
you are willing to be reconciled at last? Our horses will be refreshed
in a short time, and we shall soon be ready to set off.

TONY. And here's something to bear your charges by the way (giving the
casket); your sweetheart's jewels. Keep them: and hang those, I say,
that would rob you of one of them.

HASTINGS. But how have you procured them from your mother?

TONY. Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs. I procured them
by the rule of thumb. If I had not a key to every drawer in mother's
bureau, how could I go to the alehouse so often as I do? An honest man
may rob himself of his own at any time.

HASTINGS. Thousands do it every day. But to be plain with you; Miss
Neville is endeavouring to procure them from her aunt this very
instant. If she succeeds, it will be the most delicate way at least of
obtaining them.

TONY. Well, keep them, till you know how it will be. But I know how
it will be well enough; she'd as soon part with the only sound tooth in
her head.

HASTINGS. But I dread the effects of her resentment, when she finds
she has lost them.

TONY. Never you mind her resentment, leave ME to manage that. I
don't value her resentment the bounce of a cracker. Zounds! here they
are. Morrice! Prance! [Exit HASTINGS.]

Enter MRS. HARDCASTLE and MISS NEVILLE.

MRS. HARDCASTLE. Indeed, Constance, you amaze me. Such a girl as you
want jewels! It will be time enough for jewels, my dear, twenty years
hence, when your beauty begins to want repairs.

MISS NEVILLE. But what will repair beauty at forty, will certainly
improve it at twenty, madam.

MRS. HARDCASTLE. Yours, my dear, can admit of none. That natural
blush is beyond a thousand ornaments. Besides, child, jewels are quite
out at present. Don't you see half the ladies of our acquaintance, my
Lady Kill-daylight, and Mrs. Crump, and the rest of them, carry their
jewels to town, and bring nothing but paste and marcasites back.

MISS NEVILLE. But who knows, madam, but somebody that shall be
nameless would like me best with all my little finery about me?

MRS. HARDCASTLE. Consult your glass, my dear, and then see if, with
such a pair of eyes, you want any better sparklers. What do you think,
Tony, my dear? does your cousin Con. want any jewels in your eyes to
set off her beauty?

TONY. T