The Tutor
The play's heroine, Violetta, is determined to avoid an arranged marriage with the suitor of her father's choice, Sir Nicholas Treedle, and marry her beloved, Aimwell, instead. But to do so she must outwit her father's watchful servant, Brains. After a complex back-and-forth of misdirected and intercepted letters, Violetta manages to communicate with Aimwell through her maidservant Sensible, to prepare a plan of action. Through Sir Nicholas, she gains her father's permission to go shopping — with Brains as her escort. She has deluded Sir Nicholas's vain Tutor into thinking that she will elope with him; but when the Tutor attempts to abscond with her, he receives a beating from Brains. As this happens, however, Sensible takes Violetta's place in disguise. The Tutor brings officers to arrest Brains for assault, and seizes the disguised Sensible — only to be intercepted in turn by Sir Nicholas and his servants, who carry off Sensible under the same mistaken impression that she is Violetta. Meanwhile, Violetta and Aimwell have married. Learning that he has actually married Sensible, Sir Nicholas decides to make the best of the matter (which seems a better bargain for him than for Sensible).