_Mrs. P._ Come, come, dear one, don’t fret. At a more fitting time we will try again--we will try again. [_Exeunt MRS. PARTLET and CONSTANCE._ _Dr. D._ (_looking after them_). Poor little girl! I’m afraid she has something on her mind. She is rather comely. Time was when this old heart would have throbbed in double time at the sight of such a fairy form! But tush! I am puling! Here come the young Alexis, with his proud and happy father. Let me dry this tell-tale tear! _Enter SIR MARMADUKE and ALEXIS from house._ RECITATIVE. _Dr. D._ Sir Marmaduke--my dear young friend, Alexis-- On this most happy, most auspicious plighting, Permit me, as a true old friend, to tender My best, my very best congratulations! _Sir M._ Sir, you are most obleeging! _Alex._ Dr. Daly, My dear old tutor and my valued pastor, I thank you from the bottom of my heart! (_Spoken through music._) _Dr. D._ May fortune bless you! may the middle distance Of your young life be pleasant as the foreground-- The joyous foreground! and, when you have reached it, May that which now is the far-off horizon, But which will then become the middle distance, In fruitful promise be exceeded only By that which will have opened, in the mean time, Into a new and glorious horizon! _Sir M._ Dear sir, that is an excellent example Of an old school of stately compliment, To which I have, through life, been much addicted. Will you obleege me with a copy of it, In clerkly manuscript, that I myself May use it on appropriate occasions? _Dr. D._ Sir, you shall have a fairly written copy Ere Sol has sunk into his western slumbers! [_Exit DR. DALY._ _Sir M._ (_to ALEXIS, who is in a reverie_). Come, come, my son--your _fiancée_ will be here in five minutes. Rouse yourself to receive her. _Alex._ (_rising_). Oh, rapture! _Sir M._ Yes, you are a fortunate young fellow, and I will not disguise from you that this union with the house of Sangazure realizes my fondest wishes. Aline is rich, and she comes of a sufficiently old family, for she is the seven thousand and thirty-seventh in direct descent from Helen of Troy. True, there was a blot on the escutcheon of that lady--that affair with Paris--but where is the family, other than my own, in which there is no flaw? You are a lucky fellow, sir--a very lucky fellow! _Alex._ Father, I am welling over with limpid joy! No sicklying taint of sorrow overlies the lucid lake of liquid love, upon which, hand in hand, Aline and I are to float into eternity!