_Mabel_ and _Owen._ Never, never. You’re a good girl, Biddy. [_Exeunt Miss GALLAGHER, BIDDY, and CHRISTY._ _Clara._ I am glad they are gone. _Sir W._ I congratulate you, my dear niece, upon having got rid of tenants who would have disgraced your choice. _Clara._ These (_turning to OWEN, MABEL, and her mother,_) these will do honour to it. My written promise was to _grant the poet’s petition_. Owen, you are _the poet_--what is your petition? _Owen._ May I speak?--May I say all I wish? _Clara_ and _Sir W._ Yes, speak--say all you wish. _Owen._ I am but a young boy, and not able to keep the new inn; but Mr. Gilbert and Mabel, with my mother’s help, would keep it well, I think; and it’s they I should wish to have it, ma’am, if it were pleasing to you. _Sir W._ And what would become of yourself, my good lad? _Owen._ Time enough, sir, to think of myself, when I’ve seen my mother and sister settled. _Sir W._ Then as you won’t think of yourself, I must think for you. Your education, I find, has been well begun, and I will take care it shall not be left half done. _Widow._ Oh, I’m too happy this minute! But great joy can say little. _Mabel._ (_aside_) And great love the same. _Mr. H._ This day is the happiest I have seen since I left the land of cakes. _Gilb._ Thank you, Mr. Hope. And when I say thank you, why, I feel it. ‘Twas you helped us at the dead lift. _Sir W._ You see I was right, Gilbert; the Scotch make good friends. (_GILBERT bows._) And now, Clara, my love, what shall we call the new inn--for it must have a name? Since English, Scotch, and Irish, have united to obtain it, let the sign be the Rose, Thistle, and Shamrock. END OF COMIC DRAMAS. LEONORA LETTER I. Lady Olivia to Lady Leonora L----. What a misfortune it is to be born a woman! In vain, dear Leonora, would you reconcile me to my doom. Condemned to incessant hypocrisy, or everlasting misery, woman is the slave or the outcast of society. Confidence in our fellow-creatures, or in ourselves, alike forbidden us, to what purpose have we understandings, which we may not use? hearts, which we may not trust? To our unhappy sex, genius and sensibility are the most treacherous gifts of heaven. Why should we cultivate talents merely to gratify the caprice of tyrants? Why seek for knowledge, which can prove only that our wretchedness is irremediable? If a ray of light break in upon us, it is but to make darkness more visible; to show us the narrow limits, the Gothic structure, the impenetrable barriers of our prison. Forgive me if on this subject I cannot speak--if I cannot think--with patience. Is it not fabled, that the gods, to punish some refractory mortal of the male kind, doomed his soul to inhabit upon earth a female form? A punishment more degrading, or more difficult to endure, could scarcely be devised by cruelty omnipotent. What dangers, what sorrows, what persecutions, what nameless evils await the woman who dares to rise above the prejudices of her sex!