第59章 SCENE IX.

MELLEFONT, MASKWELL, and CYNTHIA.

MEL. I know no other way but this he has proposed: if you have love enough to run the venture.

CYNT. I don't know whether I have love enough, but I find I have obstinacy enough to pursue whatever I have once resolved; and a true female courage to oppose anything that resists my will, though 'twere reason itself.

MASK. That's right. Well, I'll secure the writings and run the hazard along with you.

CYNT. But how can the coach and six horses be got ready without suspicion?

MASK. Leave it to my care; that shall be so far from being suspected, that it shall be got ready by my lord's own order.

MEL. How?

MASK. Why, I intend to tell my lord the whole matter of our contrivance; that's my way.

MEL. I don't understand you.

MASK. Why, I'll tell my lord I laid this plot with you on purpose to betray you; and that which put me upon it, was the finding it impossible to gain the lady any other way, but in the hopes of her marrying you.

MEL. So.

MASK. So, why so, while you're busied in ****** yourself ready, I'll wheedle her into the coach; and instead of you, borrow my lord's chaplain, and so run away with her myself.

MEL. Oh, I conceive you; you'll tell him so.

MASK. Tell him so! ay; why, you don't think I mean to do so?

MEL. No, no; ha, ha, I dare swear thou wilt not.

MASK. Therefore, for our farther security, I would have you disguised like a parson, that if my lord should have curiosity to peep, he may not discover you in the coach, but think the cheat is carried on as he would have it.

MEL. Excellent Maskwell! Thou wert certainly meant for a statesman or a Jesuit; but thou art too honest for one, and too pious for the other.

MASK. Well, get yourself ready, and meet me in half-an-hour, yonder in my lady's dressing-room; go by the back stairs, and so we may slip down without being observed. I'll send the chaplain to you with his robes: I have made him my own, and ordered him to meet us to-morrow morning at St. Albans; there we will sum up this account, to all our satisfactions.

MEL. Should I begin to thank or praise thee, I should waste the little time we have.