Dick Drugget and Jenny Minnikin are eloping in France (parody of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Elizabeth Linley).
We learn that Jenny's father is a London pin-maker, and that he intends to choose her husband, while Dick is his assistant.
The family has arrived; to prevent the lovers’ separation, Tromfort will place Jenny in a Catholic convent, while Dick will wait in Boulogne or Dunkirk.
Father O’Donnovan, an Irish capuchin in the town, seems sympathetic initially, but refuses to remove Jenny from the convent until the Minnikins bribe him.
The Abbess counsels Jenny to pretend that she is waiting for divine revelation before she can make a decision about whether to stay in the convent.
Believing St. Francis is a real suitor, and furious at Jenny's treachery, Mr. and Mrs. Minnikin depart, calling the Abbess a bawd.
After they exit the room, Colonel Crosby emerges from a hiding place, calling Lady Crocodile an “Ephesian Matron”, and expressing his intentions to pursue Miss Lydell to her friend Hetty.
Lady Crocodile speaks to Jenny alone; the latter confesses that the convent is just part of the plot to avoid marriage to Codling.
Hetty has the last word: Jenny and Lady Crocodile are well matched, and Miss Lydell need feel no regret on leaving Jenny entrapped by the “galling yoke of a capricious and whimsical tyrant!”[1] Several characters that don't exist in the original replace others in the later version, including Dr. Viper, a Protestant priest working for Lady Deborah Dripping, and a villainous co-conspirator to O'Donnovan, as well as Sir Harry Hemper, and Peter Packthread, who replace Mr. Gingham and Luke Lapelle from the original.
As the title suggests, Father O'Donnovan also features more heavily in the later version, while Lady Kitty Crocodile is removed entirely.