_Lady Car._ I am almost afraid: for, if I should make a rash vow there, what is to become of my Lord Fitz Balaam? _Shuff._ Oh, that's true; I had forgot his lordship:--but as the exigencies of the times demand it, let us hurry the question through the Commons, and when it has passed, with such strong independent interest on our sides, it will hardly be thrown out by the Peerage. [_Exeunt._ SCENE III. _Another Apartment in SIR SIMON ROCHDALE'S House._ _Enter PEREGRINE._ _Pereg._ Sir Simon does not hurry himself; but 'tis a custom with the great, to make the little, and the unknown, dance attendance. When I left Cornwall, as a boy, this house, I remember, was tenanted by strangers, and the Rochdales inhabited another on the estate, seven miles off.--I have lived to see some changes in the family, and may live, perhaps, to see more. _Enter FRANK ROCHDALE._ _Frank._ You expected, I believe, Sir Simon Rochdale, sir;--but he will be occupied with particular business, for some time. Can I receive your commands, sir? _Pereg._ Are you Sir Simon Rochdale's son, sir? _Frank._ I am. _Pereg._ It was my wish, sir, to have seen your father. I come unintroduced, and scurvily enough accoutred; but, as I have urgent matters to communicate, and have suffered shipwreck, upon your coast, this morning, business will excuse my obtrusion, and the sea must apologize for my wardrobe. _Frank._ Shipwreck! That calamity is a sufficient introduction to every roof, I trust, in a civilized country. What can we do immediately to serve you? _Pereg._ Nothing, sir--I am here to perform service, not to require it. I come from a wretched hut on the heath, within the ken of this affluent mansion, where I have witnessed calamity in the extreme. _Frank._ I do not understand you. _Pereg._ Mary!-- _Frank._ Ha.!--Now you _have_ made me understand you. I perceive, now, on what object you have presented yourself here, to harangue. 'Tis a subject on which my own remorse would have taught me to bend to a just man's castigation; but the reproof retorts on the reprover, when he is known to be a hypocrite. My friend, sir, has taught me to know you. _Pereg._ He, whom I encountered at the house on the heath? _Frank._ The same. _Pereg._ And what may he have taught you? _Frank._ To discover, that your aim is to torture me, for relinquishing a beloved object, whom you are, at this moment, attaching to yourself;--to know, that a diabolical disposition, for which I cannot account, prompts you to come here, without the probability of benefiting any party, to injure me, and throw a whole family into confusion, on the eve of a marriage. But, in tearing myself from the poor, wronged, Mary, I almost tear my very heart by its fibres from the seat;----but 'tis a sacrifice to a father's repose; and--