they can have no
meaning at all.

SARA.

What is the name of your relation?

MELLEFONT.

She is--Lady Solmes. You will have heard me mention the name before.

SARA.

I don't remember.

MELLEFONT.

May I beg you to see her?

SARA.

Beg me? You can command me to do so.

MELLEFONT.

What a word! No, Sara, she shall not have the happiness of seeing you.
She will regret it, but she must submit to it. Sara has her reasons,
which I respect without knowing them.

SARA.

How hasty you are, Mellefont! I shall expect Lady Solmes, and do my
best to show myself worthy of the honour of her visit. Are you content?

MELLEFONT.

Ah, Sara! let me confess my ambition. I should like to show you to the
whole world! And were I not proud of the possession of such a being, I
should reproach myself with not being able to appreciate her value. I
will go and bring her to you at once. (_Exit_.)

SARA (_alone_).

I hope she will not be one of those proud women, who are so full of
their own virtue that they believe themselves above all failings. With
one single look of contempt they condemn us, and an equivocal shrug of
the shoulders is all the pity we seem to deserve in their eyes.

Scene III.

Waitwell, Sara.

BETTY (_behind the scenes_).

Just come in here, if you must speak to her yourself!

SARA (_looking round_).

Who must speak to me? Whom do I see? Is it possible? You, Waitwell?

WAITWELL.

How happy I am to see our young lady again!

SARA.

Good God, what do you bring me? I hear already, I hear already; you
bring me the news of my father's death! He is gone, the excellent man,
the best of fathers! He is gone, and I--I am the miserable creature who
has hastened his death.

WAITWELL.

Ah, Miss----

SARA.

Tell me, quick! tell me, that his last moments were not embittered by
the thought of me; that he had forgotten me; that he died as peacefully
as he used to hope to die in my arms; that he d