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Read Ebook: Next Door Neighbours: A Comedy; In Three Acts by Destouches N Ricault Inchbald Mrs Mercier Louis S Bastien
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Ebook has 76 lines and 6018 words, and 2 pages
BLACKMAN. Grief has turned his brain.
MANLY. Sir George, I honour your feelings; and as for the feelings of these gentlemen, I am extremely happy, that it is in my power to dry up their tears, and calm all their sorrows.
SIR GEORGE. Sir!
BLACKMAN. How? In what way?
MANLY. Come forth, young lady, to the arms of a brother, and relieve the anguish of these mourners, who are lamenting your decease. --Yes, Sir George, here is that sister, whom those gentlemen assure us, is dead;--and this is the brother of your father.--These are proofs, as convincing, I hope, as any Mr. Blackman can produce.
SIR GEORGE. She, my sister! Her pretended father my uncle too! Blackman, you would have plunged me into an anguish I never knew before; you would have plunged me into shame.
BLACKMAN. Pshaw.--Mr. Manly, notwithstanding you are these people's voucher, this appears but a scheme.--These persons are but adventurers, and may possibly have about them forgeries, such as an honest man, like myself, would shudder at.
MANLY. Shew that--that Mr. Blackman, out of my house instantly; and take care you never admit him again.
BLACKMAN. Sir George, will you suffer this?
SIR GEORGE. Aye, and a great deal more.
BLUNTLY. Look'ee Blackman.--If you don't fall down upon your knees, and beg my pardon at the street door, for the trick you have put upon me, in assuring me my master's sister was really dead, and that I could do her no injury, by doing him a service--if you don't beg my pardon for this, I'll give you such an assault and battery as you never had to do with in your life.
SIR GEORGE. My sister--with the sincerest joy I call you by that name--and while I thus embrace you, offer you a heart, that beats with all the pure and tender affection, which our kindred to each other claims.--In you I behold my father; and experience an awful fear, mingled with my regard.
WILLFORD. Continue still that regard, and even that fear--these filial sentiments may prove important; and they shall ever be repaid with my paternal watchings, friendship, and love.
SIR GEORGE. How!
LADY CAROLINE. Behold a friend in your necessities--a mistress whom your misfortunes cannot drive away--but who, experiencing much of your unkindness, still loves you; and knowing your every folly, will still submit to honour, and obey you.
I received your lavish presents, but to hoard them for you--made myself mistress of your fortune, but to return it to you--and with it, all my own.
SIR GEORGE. Can this be real? Can I be raised in one moment, from the depths of misery to unbounded happiness?
SERVANT. A young man, who says he is Mr. Willford's son, is called to enquire for him.
MANLY. Shew him in.
WILLFORD. Come, Henry, and take leave of your sister for ever.
HENRY. How so, sir?--What do you mean? To be parted from her, would be the utmost rigour of fortune.
MANLY. The affection with which you speak, young gentleman, seems to convey something beyond mere brotherly love.
ELEANOR. And he, some years since, implied it to me. Yet, in such doubtful terms, I knew not which of us had the sorrow not to be your child.--I now find it is myself--and I aver it to be a sorrow, for which, all the fortune I am going to possess will not repay me.
HENRY. I am in doubt of what I hear--Eleanor, since our short separation, there cannot surely have been any important discovery--
MANLY. Be not surprised--great discoveries, which we labour in vain for years to make, are frequently brought about in one lucky moment, without any labour at all.
SIR GEORGE. True--for till this day arose, I had passed every hour since my birth, without making one discovery to my advantage--while this short, but propitious morning, has discovered to me all my former folly--and discovered to me--how to be in future happy.
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