VAN ROUGH. What, Mary, always singing doleful ditties, and moping over these plaguy books. MARIA. I hope, sir, that it is not criminal to improve my mind with books; or to divert my melancholy with singing, at my leisure hours. VAN ROUGH. Why, I don't know that, child; I don't know that. They us'd to say, when I was a young man, that if a woman knew how to make a pudding, and to keep herself out of fire and water, she knew enough for a wife. Now, what good have these books done you? have they not made you melancholy? as you call it. Pray, what right has a girl of your age to be in the dumps? hav'n't you every thing your heart can wish; an't you going to be married to a young man of great fortune; an't you going to have the quit-rent of twenty miles square? MARIA. One hundredth part of the land, and a lease for life of the heart of a man I could love, would satisfy me. VAN ROUGH. Pho, pho, pho! child; nonsense, downright nonsense, child. This comes of your reading your story-books; your Charles Grandisons, your Sentimental Journals, and your Robinson Crusoes, and such other trumpery. No, no, no! child, it is money makes the mare go; keep your eye upon the main chance, Mary. MARIA. Marriage, sir, is, indeed, a very serious affair. VAN ROUGH. You are right, child; you are right. I am sure I found it so, to my cost. MARIA. I mean, sir, that as marriage is a portion for life, and so intimately involves our happiness, we cannot be too considerate in the choice of our companion. VAN ROUGH. Right, child; very right. A young woman should be very sober when she is making her choice, but when she has once made it, as you have done, I don't see why she should not be as merry as a grig; I am sure she has reason enough to be so. Solomon says that "there is a time to laugh, and a time to weep." Now, a time for a young woman to laugh is when she has made sure of a good rich husband. Now, a time to cry, according to you, Mary, is when she is making choice of him; but _I_ should think that a young woman's time to cry was when she despaired of _getting_ one. Why, there was your mother, now: to be sure, when I popp'd the question to her she did look a little silly; but when she had once looked down on her apron-strings, as all modest young women us'd to do, and drawled out ye-s, she was as brisk and as merry as a bee. MARIA. My honoured mother, sir, had no motive to melancholy; she married the man of her choice. VAN ROUGH. The man of her choice! And pray, Mary, an't you going to marry the man of your choice--what trumpery notion is this? It is these vile books [_Throwing them away._]. I'd have you to know, Mary, if you won't make young Van Dumpling the man of _your_ choice, you shall marry him as the man of _my_ choice. MARIA. You terrify me, sir. Indeed, sir, I am all submission. My will is yours.