MILLA. What, with that face? No, if you keep your countenance, ’tis
impossible I should hold mine. Well, after all, there is something very
moving in a lovesick face. Ha, ha, ha! Well I won’t laugh; don’t be
peevish. Heigho! Now I’ll be melancholy, as melancholy as a
watch-light. Well, Mirabell, if ever you will win me, woo me now.—Nay,
if you are so tedious, fare you well: I see they are walking away.
MIRA. Can you not find in the variety of your disposition one moment—
MILLA. To hear you tell me Foible’s married, and your plot like to
speed? No.
MIRA. But how you came to know it—
MILLA. Without the help of the devil, you can’t imagine; unless she
should tell me herself. Which of the two it may have been, I will leave
you to consider; and when you have done thinking of that, think of me.
SCENE VII.
MIRABELL _alone_.
MIRA. I have something more.—Gone! Think of you? To think of a
whirlwind, though ’twere in a whirlwind, were a case of more steady
contemplation, a very tranquillity of mind and mansion. A fellow that
lives in a windmill has not a more whimsical dwelling than the heart of a
man that is lodged in a woman. There is no point of the compass to which
they cannot turn, and by which they are not turned, and by one as well as
another; for motion, not method, is their occupation. To know this, and
yet continue to be in love, is to be made wise from the dictates of
reason, and yet persevere to play the fool by the force of instinct.—Oh,
here come my pair of turtles. What, billing so sweetly? Is not
Valentine’s day over with you yet?
SCENE VIII.
[_To him_] WAITWELL, FOIBLE.
MIRA. Sirrah, Waitwell, why, sure, you think you were married for your
own recreation and not for my conveniency.
WAIT. Your pardon, sir. With submission, we have indeed been solacing
in lawful delights; but still with an eye to business, sir. I have
instructed her as well as I could. If she can take your directions as
readily as my instructions, sir, your affairs are in a prosperous way.
MIRA. Give you joy, Mrs. Foible.
FOIB. O—las, sir, I’m so ashamed.—I’m afraid my lady has been in a
thousand inquietudes for me. But I protest, sir, I made as much haste as
I could.
WAIT. That she did indeed, sir. It was my fault that she did not make
more.
MIRA. That I believe.
FOIB. But I told my lady as you instructed me, sir, that I had a
prospect of seeing Sir Rowland, your uncle, and that I would put her
ladyship’s picture in my pocket to show him, which I’ll be sure to say
has made him so enamoured of her beauty, that he burns with impatience to
lie at her ladyship’s feet and worship the original.
MIRA. Excellent Foible! Matrimony has made you eloquent in love.
WAIT. I think she has profited, sir. I think so.
FOIB. You have seen Madam Millamant, sir?
MIRA. Yes.
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