Feminine Arithmetic

LAURA

ON me he shall ne’er put a ring,

So, mamma, ’t is vain to take trouble—

For I was but eighteen in spring,

While his age exactly is double.

MAMMA

He ’s but in his thirty-sixth year,

Tall, handsome, good-natured and witty,

And should you refuse him, my dear,

May you die an old maid without pity!

LAURA

His figure, I grant you, will pass,

And at present he ’s young enough plenty;

But when I am sixty, alas!

Will not he be a hundred and twenty?