_Pen._ Yes, I don't know how--there's a sort of virtue, or prudence, or what you'll call it, that we can but just approve. That does not win us. Lovemore wants that fire, that conversation-spirit I would have. They say he's learned as well as discreet, but I'm no judge of that. I'm sure he's no woman's scholar; his wisdom he should turn into wit, and his learning into poetry or humour. _Vict._ Well, I'm not so much of your mind; I like a sober passion. _Pen._ A sober passion! you took me up just now when I said an offensive virtue.--Bless me! [_Stumbling almost to a fall._ _Y. Book._[45] [_Catching her._] How much am I indebted to an accident, that favours me with an occasion of this small service! for 'tis to me an happiness beyond expression thus to kiss your hand. _Pen._ The occasion, methinks, is not so obliging, nor the happiness you mention worth that name, sir. _Y. Book._ 'Tis true, madam, I owe it all to fortune; neither your kindness nor my industry had any share in't. Thus am I still as wretched as I was, for this happiness I so much prize had doubtless been refused my want of merit. _Pen._ It has very soon, you see, lost what you valued in it; but I find you and I, sir, have a different sense; for, in my opinion, we enjoy with most pleasure what we attain with least merit. Merit is a claim, and may pretend justly to favour; when without it what's conferred is more unexpected, and therefore more pleasing. _Y. Book._ You talk very well, madam, of an happiness you can't possibly be acquainted with, the enjoying without desert. But indeed you have done me a very singular good office, in letting me know myself very much qualified for felicity. _Vict._ I swear he's a very pretty fellow, and how readily the thing talks! I begin to pity Lovemore, but I begin to hate Penelope. How he looks! he looks at her! _Y. Book._[46] But judge, madam, what the condition of a passionate man must be, that can approach the hand only of her he dies for, when her heart is inaccessible. _Pen._ 'Tis very well the heart lies not so easily to be seized as the hand--I find----Pray, sir--I don't know what there is in this very odd fellow: I'm not angry, though he's downright rude--but I must---- _Y. Book._ But your heart, madam, your heart--[_Pressingly._ _Pen._ You seemed, sir, I must confess, to have shown a ready civility when I'd like to fall just now, for which I could not but thank you, and permit you to say what you pleased on that occasion--"But your heart, madam!" 'tis a sure sign, sir, you know not me; or, if you are what indeed you seem--a gentleman--sure you forget yourself, or rather you talk, by memory, a form or cant which you mistake for something that's gallant. _Y. Book._ Madam, I very humbly beg your pardon, if I pressed too far and too abruptly. I forgot, indeed, that I broke through decencies, and that though you have been long a familiar to me, I am a stranger to you.