idle ſollicitations, which are an affront to my character, and an injury to your own honour?
Sir John. I know your delicacy, and tremble to offend it: but let the urgency of the occaſion be my excuſe! Consider Madam, that the future happineſs of my life depends on my preſent application to you! conſider that this day muſt determine my fate; and theſe are perhaps the only moments left me to incline you to warrant my paſſion, and to intreat you not to oppoſe the propoſals I mean to open to your father.
Fanny. For ſhame, for ſhame, Sir John! Think of your previous engagements! Think of your own ſituation, and think of mine!—What have you diſcovered in my conduct that might encourage you to ſo bold a declaration? I am ſhocked that you ſhould venture to ſay ſo much, and bluſh that I ſhould even dare to give it a hearing.—Let me be gone!
Sir John. Nay, ſtay Madam! but one moment!—Your ſenſibility is too great.—Engagements! what engagements have even been pretended on either ſide than thoſe of family-convenience? I went on in the trammels of matrimonial negotiation with a blind ſubmiſſion to your father and Lord Ogleby; but my heart ſoon claimed a right to be conſulted. It has devoted itſelf to you, and obliges me to plead earneſtly for the ſame tender intereſt in your's.
Fanny. Have a care, Sir John! do not miſtake a depraved will for a virtuous inclination. By theſe common pretences of the heart, half of our ſex are made fools, and a greater part of yours deſpiſe them for it.
Sir John. Affection, you will allow, is involuntary. We cannot always direct it to the object on which it ſhould fix—But when it is once inviolably attached, inviolably as mine is to you, it often creates reciprocal affection.—When I laſt urged you on this ſubject, you heard me with more temper, and I hoped with ſome compaſſion.
