_Bev. Jun._ These moral writers practise virtue after death. This charming vision of Mirza![125] Such an author consulted in a morning sets the spirit for the vicissitudes of the day better than the glass does a man's person. But what a day have I to go through! to put on an easy look with an aching heart! If this lady my father urges me to marry should not refuse me, my dilemma is insupportable. But why should I fear it? Is not she in equal distress with me? Has not the letter I have sent her this morning confessed my inclination to another? Nay, have I not moral assurances of her engagements, too, to my friend Myrtle? It's impossible but she must give in to it; for, sure, to be denied is a favour any man may pretend to. It must be so--Well, then, with the assurance of being rejected, I think I may confidently say to my father, I am ready to marry her. Then let me resolve upon, what I am not very good at, though it is an honest dissimulation. _Enter_ TOM. _Tom._ Sir John Bevil, sir, is in the next room. _Bev. Jun._ Dunce! Why did not you bring him in? _Tom._ I told him, sir, you were in your closet. _Bev. Jun._ I thought you had known, sir, it was my duty to see my father anywhere. [_Going himself to the door._ _Tom._ The devil's in my master! he has always more wit than I have. [_Aside._ BEVIL, JUN., _introducing_ SIR JOHN. _Bev. Jun._ Sir, you are the most gallant, the most complaisant of all parents. Sure, 'tis not a compliment to say these lodgings are yours. Why would you not walk in, sir? _Sir J. Bev._ I was loth to interrupt you unseasonably on your wedding-day. _Bev. Jun._ One to whom I am beholden for my birth-day might have used less ceremony. _Sir J. Bev._ Well, son, I have intelligence you have writ to your mistress this morning. It would please my curiosity to know the contents of a wedding-day letter; for courtship must then be over. _Bev. Jun._ I assure you, sir, there was no insolence in it upon the prospect of such a vast fortune's being added to our family; but much acknowledgment of the lady's greater desert. _Sir J. Bev._ But, dear Jack, are you in earnest in all this? And will you really marry her? _Bev. Jun._ Did I ever disobey any command of yours, sir? nay, any inclination that I saw you bent upon? _Sir J. Bev._ Why, I can't say you have, son; but methinks in this whole business, you have not been so warm as I could have wished you. You have visited her, it's true, but you have not been particular. Everyone knows you can say and do as handsome things as any man; but you have done nothing but lived in the general--been complaisant only. _Bev. Jun._ As I am ever prepared to marry if you bid me, so I am ready to let it alone if you will have me. [HUMPHRY _enters, unobserved._ _Sir J. Bev._ Look you there now! why, what am I to think of this so absolute and so indifferent a resignation?