AMELIA. It is my father’s will that I should marry—It is my father’s wish to see me happy—If then you love me as you say, I will marry; and will be happy—but only with you.—I will tell him this.—At first he will start; then grow angry; then be in a passion—In his passion he will call me “undutiful:” but he will soon recollect himself, and resume his usual smiles, saying “Well, well, if he love you, and you love him, in the name of heaven, let it be.” Then I shall hug him round the neck, kiss his hands, run away from him, and fly to you; it will soon be known that I am your bride, the whole village will come to wish me joy, and heaven’s blessing will follow. _Enter Verdun, the_ BUTLER. AMELIA. [_discontented_]. Ah! is it you? BUTLER. Without vanity, I have taken the liberty to enter this apartment the moment the good news reached my ears. AMELIA. What news? BUTLER. Pardon an old servant, your father’s old butler, gracious lady, who has had the honour to carry the baron in his arms—and afterwards with humble submission to receive many a box o’ the ear from you—if he thinks it his duty to make his congratulations with due reverence on this happy day, and to join with the muses in harmonious tunes on the lyre. AMELIA. Oh! my good butler, I am not in a humour to listen to the muses, and your lyre. BUTLER. There has never been a birth-day, nor wedding-day, nor christening-day, celebrated in your family, in which I have not joined with the muses in full chorus.—In forty-six years, three hundred and ninety-seven congratulations on different occasions have dropped from my pen. To-day, the three hundred and ninety-eighth is coming forth;—for heaven has protected our noble master, who has been in great danger. AMELIA. Danger! My father in danger! What do you mean? BUTLER. One of the gamekeepers has returned to inform the whole castle of a base and knavish trick, of which the world will talk, and my poetry hand down to posterity. AMELIA. What, what is all this? BUTLER. The baron, my lord and master, in company with the strange Count, had not been gone a mile beyond the lawn, when one of them —— AMELIA. What happened? Speak for heaven’s sake. BUTLER. My verse shall tell you. AMELIA. No, no; tell us in prose. MR. ANHALT. Yes, in prose. BUTLER. Ah, you have neither of you ever been in love, or you would prefer poetry to prose. But excuse [_pulls out a paper_] the haste in which it was written. I heard the news in the fields—always have paper and a pencil about me, and composed the whole forty lines crossing the meadows and the park in my way home. [_reads._] Oh Muse, ascend the forked mount. And lofty strains prepare, About a Baron and a Count, Who went to hunt the hare. The hare she ran with utmost speed, And sad, and anxious looks, Because the furious hounds indeed, Were near to her, gadzooks.