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? haven't you everything 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 non-
sense, child. This comes of your reading your story-