Mrs. CAUTION, FORMAL'S Sister, an impertinent precise old woman. PRUE, HIPPOLITA'S Maid. A Lady. Mrs. FLIRT, Mrs. FLOUNCE, Two common Women of the town. Servants, Waiter, and Attendants. SCENE--LONDON. _THE GENTLEMAN DANCING-MASTER._ ACT THE FIRST. SCENE I.--Don DIEGO'S _House, in the evening._ _Enter_ HIPPOLITA _and_ PRUE. _Hip._ To confine a woman just in her rambling age! take away her liberty at the very time she should use it! O barbarous aunt! O unnatural father! to shut up a poor girl at fourteen, and hinder her budding! All things are ripened by the sun:--to shut up a poor girl at fourteen!-- _Prue._ 'Tis true, miss, two poor young creatures as we are! _Hip._ Not suffered to see a play in a twelve-month!-- _Prue._ Nor go to Punchinello,[52] nor Paradise!-- _Hip._ Nor to take a ramble to the Park nor Mulberry-garden![53]-- _Prue._ Nor to Totnam-court, nor Islington![54]-- _Hip._ Nor to eat a syllabub in New Spring garden[55] with a cousin!-- _Prue._ Nor to drink a pint of wine with a friend at the Prince in the Sun!-- _Hip._ Nor to hear a fiddle in good company!-- _Prue._ Nor to hear the organs and tongs at the Gun in Moorfields!-- _Hip._ Nay, not suffered to go to church, because the men are sometimes there!--Little did I think I should ever have longed to go to church. _Prue._ Or I either;--but between two maids-- _Hip._ Nor see a man!-- _Prue._ Nor come near a man!-- _Hip._ Nor hear of a man!-- _Prue._ No, miss; but to be denied a man! and to have no use at all of a man!-- _Hip._ Hold, hold!--your resentment is as much greater than mine, as your experience has been greater. But all this while, what do we make of my cousin, my husband elect, as my aunt says? We have had his company these three days; is he no man? _Prue._ No, faith, he's but a monsieur. But you'll resolve yourself that question within these three days; for by that time he'll be your husband, if your father come to-night-- _Hip._ Or if I provide not myself with another in the mean time: for fathers seldom choose well; and I will no more take my father's choice in a husband, than I a would in a gown, or a suit of knots. So that if that cousin of mine were not an ill-contrived, ugly, freakish fool, in being my father's choice I should hate him. Besides, he has almost made me out of love with mirth and good-humour; for he debases it as much as a jack-pudding, and civility and good breeding more than a city dancing-master. _Prue._ What! won't you marry him then, madam? _Hip._ Would'st thou have me marry a fool, an idiot? _Prue._ Lord! 'tis a sign you have been kept up indeed, and know little of the world, to refuse a man for a husband only because he's a fool! Methinks he's a pretty apish kind of a gentleman, like other gentlemen, and handsome enough to lie with in the dark, when husbands take their privileges; and for the day-times, you may take the privilege of a wife.