_Deb._ Prodigious busy with her company, but I'll tell Mrs. _Martilla_ you are here, I believe she'll come to you. [_Exit._ _Col._ That will do as well. Poor _Martilla_! she's a very good girl, and I have lov'd her a great while. I think six months it is, since like a merciless highwayman, I made her deliver all she had about her; she begg'd hard, poor thing, I'd leave her one small bauble. Had I let her keep it, I believe she had still kept me. Cou'd women but refuse their ravenous lovers that one dear destructive moment, how long might they reign over them! But for a bane to both their joys and ours, when they have indulg'd us with such favours as make us adore them, they are not able to refuse us that one, which puts an end to our devotion. _Enter ~Martilla~._ _Col._ _Martilla_, how dost thou do, my child? _Mart._ As well as a losing gamester can. _Col._ Why, what have you lost? _Mart._ I have lost you. _Col._ How came you to lose me? _Mart._ By losing myself. _Col._ We can be friends still. _Mart._ Dull ones. _Col._ Useful ones, perhaps. Shall I help thee to a good husband? _Mart._ Not if I were rich enough to live without one. _Col._ I'm sorry I'm not rich enough to make thee so; but we won't talk of melancholy things. Who are these folks your aunt has got in her house? _Mart._ One Sir _Francis Headpiece_ and his Lady, with a son and daughter. _Col._ _Headpiece_! Cotso, I know 'em a little. I met with 'em at a race in the country two years since; a sort of blockhead, is not he? _Mart._ So they say. _Col._ His wife seem'd a mettlesome gentlewoman, if she had but a fair field to range in. _Mart._ That she won't want now, for they stay in town the whole winter. _Col._ Oh that will do to shew all her parts in. _Enter Mrs. ~Motherly~._ How do you do, my old acquaintance? Mrs. _Moth._ At your service, you know, always colonel. _Col._ I hear you have got good company in the house. Mrs. _Moth._ I hope it will prove so; he's a parliament man only, colonel, you know there's some danger in that. _Col._ O, never fear, he'll pay his landlady, tho' he don't pay his butcher. Mrs. _Moth._ His wife's a clever woman. _Col._ So she is. Mrs. _Moth._ How do you know? _Col._ I have seen her in the country, and begin to think I'll visit her in town. Mrs. _Moth._ You begin to look like a rogue. _Col._ What, your wicked fancies are stirring already? Mrs. _Moth._ Yours are, or I'm mistaken. But I'll have none of your pranks play'd upon her. _Col._ Why, she's no girl, she can defend herself. Mrs. _Moth._ But what if she won't? _Col._ Why then she can blame neither you nor me. Mrs. _Moth._ You'll never be quiet till you get my windows broke; but I must go and attend my lodgers, so good night.