Enter TONY and Mifs NEVILLE, followed by Mrs.

HARDCASTLE and HASTINGS.

TONY,

What do you follow me for, coufin Con? I wonder you're not asham'd to be so very engaging.

Mifs NEVILLE.

I hope, coufin, one may speak to one's own relations, and not be to blame.

TONY.

Aye, but I know what fort of a relation you want to make me though; but it won't do. I tell you, coufin Con, it won't do; fo I beg you'll keep your distance, I want no nearer relationship.

[She follows, coquetting him to the back scene.

Mrs. HARDCASTLE.

Well! I vow, Mr. Haftings, you are very entertaining. There's nothing in the world I love to talk of fo much as London, and the fashions, though I was never there myself.

HASTINGS.

Never there! You amaze me! From your air and manner, I conclude you had been bred all your life either at Ranelagh, St. James's, or Tower Wharf.

Mrs. HARDCASTLE.

We

O! Sir, you're only pleafed to fay fo. country perfons can have no manner at all. I'm in love with the town, and that ferves to raise me

above fome of our neighbouring ruftics; but who can have a manner, that has never feen the Pantheon, the Grotto Gardens, the Borough, and fuch places where the nobility chiefly refort? All I can do, is to enjoy London at fecond-hand. I take care to know every tête-à-tête from the fcandalous magazine, and have all the fashions, as they come out, in a letter from the two Mifs Rickets of Crookedlane. Pray how do you like this head, Mr. Haftings?

HASTINGS.

Extremely elegant and degagée, upon my word, madam. Your frifeur is a Frenchman, I fuppofe?

Mrs. HARDCASTLE.

I proteft I dreffed it myself from a print in the ladies memorandum-book for the last year.

Indeed!

HASTINGS.

Such a head in a fide-box, at the playhoufe, would draw as many gazers as my lady may'refs at a city ball.

Mrs. HARDCASTLE.

I vow, fince inoculation began, there is no fuch thing to be feen as a plain woman; fo one must drefs a little particular, or one may escape in the crowd.

HASTINGS.

But that can never be your cafe, madam, in any drefs. (Bowing.)

Mrs.

Mrs. HARDCASTLE.

Yet, what fignifies my dreffing when I have fuch a piece of antiquity by my fide as Mr. Hardcastle: all I can say will never argue down a fingle button from his cloaths. I have often wanted him to throw off his great flaxen wig, and where he was bald, to plaister it over, like my Lord Pately, with powder.

HASTINGS.

You are right, madam; for, as among the ladies there are none ugly, fo among the men there are none old.

Mrs. HARDCASTLE.

But what do you think his answer was? Why, with his ufual Gothic vivacity, he said I only wanted him to throw off his wig to convert it into a tête for my own wearing.

HASTINGS.

Intolerable! At your age you may wear what you please, and it must become you.

Mrs. HARDCASTLE.

Pray, Mr. Haftings, what do you take to be the moft fashionable age about town?

HASTINGS.

Some time ago, forty was all the mode; but I'm told the ladies intend to bring up fifty for the enfuing winter.

Mrs. HARDCASTLE.

Seriously. Then I fhall be too young for the

fashion.

HAST

HASTINGS.

No lady begins now to put on jewels 'till fhe's past forty. For inftance, Mifs there, in a polite circle, would be confidered as a child, as a mere maker of famplers.

Mrs. HARDCASTLE.

And yet Mrs. Niece thinks herfelf as much a woman, and is as fond of jewels as the oldest of us all.

HASTINGS.

Your niece, is fhe? And that young gentleman, a brother of yours, I fhould prefume?

Mrs. HARDCASTLE.

My fon, Sir. They are contracted to each o ther. Obferve their little sports. They fall in and out ten times a day, as if they were man and wife already. (To them) Well, Tony, child, what soft things are you faying to your coufin Conftance this evening?

TONY.

I have been saying no foft things; but that it's very hard to be followed about fo. Ecod! I've not a place in the house now that's left to myself, but the ftable.

Mrs. HARDCASTLE.

Never mind him, Con, my dear. He's in another story behind your back.

Mifs

Mifs NEVILLE.

There's fomething generous in my coufin's manner. He falls out before faces to be forgiven in

like each other about the mouth, Mr. Haftings? The Blenkinsop mouth to a T. They're of a fize Back to back, my pretties, that Mr. Haftings may fee you. Come, Tony.

too.

ΤΟΝΥ.

You had as good not make me, I tell you.

Mifs NEVILLE.

(Measuring.)

O lud! he has almost cracked my head.

Mrs. HARDCASTLE.

O the monster! For fhame, Tony. You a man, and behave fo!

TONY.

If I'm a man, let me have my fortin. Ecod! I'll not be made a fool of no longer.

Mrs. HARDCASTLE.

Is this, ungrateful boy, all that I'm to get for the pains I have taken in your education? I that have rock'd you in your cradle, and fed that pretty mouth with a spoon! Did not I work that waiftcoat to make you genteel? Did not I prescribe for

you