SCENE IV.

An Apartment at MR. HARDY'S.

VILLERS seated on a Sofa, reading.

Enter FLUTTER.

Flut. Ha, Villers, have you seen Mrs. Rackett?— Miss Hardy, I find, is out.

Vill. I have not seen her yet. I have made a voyage to Lapland since I came. [Flinging away the Book.] A lady at her toilette is as difficult to be moved, as a Quaker. [Yawning.] What events have happened in the world since yesterday? have you heard?

Flut. Oh, yes; I stopped at Tattersall's, as I came by, and there I found Lord James Jessamy, Sir William Wilding, and Mr.But, now I think on't, you shan't know a syllable of the matter; for I have been informed you never believe above one half of what I say.

Vill. My dear fellow, somebody has imposed upon you most egregiously! Half! Why, I never believe one tenth part of what you say: that is according to the plain and literal expression; but, as I understand you, your intelligence is amusing.

Flut. That's very hard now, very hard. I never related a falsity in my life, unless I stumbled at it by mistake; and if it were otherwise, your dull matterof-fact people are infinitely obliged to those warm imaginations, which soar into fiction to amuse you; for, positively, the common events of this little dirty world are not worth talking about, unless you embellish them! -Ha! here comes Mrs. Rackett: Adieu to weeds, I see! All life!

Enter MRS. RACKETT.

Enter, madam, in all your charms! Villers has been abusing your toilette, for keeping you so long; but I think we are much obliged to it, and so are you. Mrs. R. How so, pray? Good-morning t'ye both. Here, here's a hand a-piece for you.

[They kiss her Hands. Flut. How so! Because it has given you so many beauties.

Mrs. R. Delightful compliment! What do you think of that, Villiers ?

Vill. That he and his compliments are alike— showy, but won't bear examining.So you brought Miss Hardy to town last night?

Mrs. R. Yes, I should have brought her before, but I had a fall from my horse, that confined me a week. I suppose in her heart she wished me hanged a dozen times an hour.

Flut. Why?

Mrs. R. Had she not an expecting lover in town all the time? She meets him this morning at the lawyer's. I hope she'll charm him; she's the sweetest girl in the world.

Vill. Vanity, like murder, will out.-You have convinced me you think yourself more charming. Mrs. R. How can that be?

Vill. No woman ever praises another, unless she thinks herself superior in the very perfections she allows.

Flut. Nor no man ever rails at the sex, unless he is conscious he deserves their hatred.

Mrs. R. Thank ye, Flutter-I'll owe ye a bouruet for that. I am going to visit the new-married Lady Frances Touchwood.-Who knows her husband? Flut. Every body.

Mrs. R. Is there not something odd in his charac ter?

Vill. Nothing, but that he is passionately fond of his wife;-and so petulant is his love, that he opened the cage of a favourite bullfinch, and sent it to catch butterflies, because she rewarded its song with her kisses.

Mrs. R. Intolerable monster! Such a brute de

serves

Vill. Nay, nay, nay, nay, this is your sex now. Give a woman but one stroke of character, off she goes, like a ball from a racket; sees the whole man, marks him down for an angel or a devil, and so exhibits him to her acquaintance. This monster! this brute! is one of the worthiest fellows upon earth; sound sense, and a liberal mind; but dotes on his wife to such excess, that he quarrels with every thing she admires, and is jealous of her tippet and nosegay.

Mrs. R. Oh, less love for me, kind Cupid! I can see no difference between the torment of such an affection, and hatred.

Flut. Oh, pardon me, inconceivable difference, inconceivable; I see it as clearly as your bracelet. In the one case the husband would say, as Mr. Snapper said 'tother day, Zounds! madam, do you suppose that my table, and my house, and my pictures!Apropos, des Bottes:-There was the divinest Plague of Athens sold yesterday at Langford's! the dead figures so natural, you would have sworn they had been alive. Lord Primrose bid five hundred-Six, said Lady Carmine-A thousand, said Ingot the Nabob.-Down went the hammer.-A rouleau for your bargain, said Sir Jeremy Jingle. And what answer do you think Ingot made him ?

Mrs. R. Why took the offer,

Flut. Sir, I would oblige you, but I buy this picture to place in the nursery: the children have already got Whittington and his Cat; 'tis just this size, and they'll make good companions.

Mrs. R. Ha! ha! ha! Well, I protest that's just the way now the Nabobs and their wives outbid one at every sale, and the creatures have no more taste—

Vill. There again! You forget this story is told by Flutter, who always remembers every thing but the circumstances and the person he talks about ;-'twas Ingot who offered a rouleau for the bargain, and Sir Jeremy Jingle who made the reply.

Flut. Egad, I believe you are right-Well, the story is as good one way as t'other, you know. Good morning. I am going to Mrs. Crotchet's concert, and in my way back shall make my bow at Sir George's.

[Going. Vill. I'll venture every figure in your tailor's bill, you make some blunder there.

Flut. [Turning back.] Done! my tailor's bill has not been paid these two years; and I'll open my mouth with as much care as Mrs. Bridget Button, who wears cork plumpers in each cheek, and never hazards more than six words, for fear of showing them.

[Exit FLUTTER. Mrs. R. 'Tis a goodnatured insignificant creature! let in every where, and cared for no where.-There's Miss Hardy returned from Lincoln's Inn:-she seems rather chagrined.

Vill. Then I leave you to your communications.

Enter LETITIA, followed by her MAID.

Adieu! I am rejoiced to see you so well, madam ! but I must tear myself away.

Letit. Don't vanish in a moment.

Vill. Oh, inhuman! you are two of the most dangerous women in town -Staying here to be cannonaded by four such eyes, is equal to a rencontre with Paul Jones, or a midnight march to Omoa!―They'll swallow the nonsense, for the sake of the compliment. [Aside.-Exit VILLERS. Letit. [Gives her Cloak to her MAID.] Order Du

Quesne never more to come again; he shall positively dress my hair no more. [Exit MAID.] And this odious silk, how unbecoming it is!-I was bewitched to chuse it. [Throwing herself on a Chair, and looking in a Pocket -Glass, MRS. RACKETT staring at her.] Did you ever see such a fright as I am to-day.

Mrs. R. Yes, I have seen you look much worse. Letit. How can you be so provoking? If I do not look this morning worse than ever I looked in my life, I am naturally a fright. You shall have it which

way you will.

Mrs. R. Just as you please; but pray what is the meaning of all this?

Letit. [Rising.] Men are all dissemblers, flatterers, deceivers! Have I not heard a thousand times of my air, my eyes, my shape-all made for victory! and to-day, when I bent my whole heart on one poor conquest, I have proved that all those imputed charms amount to nothing;-for Doricourt saw them unmoved. A husband of fifteen months could not have examined me with more cutting indifference.

Mrs. R. Then you return it like a wife of fifteen months, and be as indifferent as he.

Letit. Ay, there's the sting! The blooming boy, who left his image in my young heart, is at four and twenty improved in every grace that fixed him there. It is the same face that my memory, and my dreams, constantly painted to me; but its graces are finished, and every beauty heightened. How mortifying, to feel myself at the same moment his slave, and an object of perfect indifference to him!

Mrs. R. How are you certain that was the case ? Did you expect him to kneel down before the lawyer, his clerks, and your father, to make oath of your beauty?

Letit. No; but he should have looked as if a sudden ray. had pierced him! he should have been breathless! speechless! for, oh! Caroline, all this was I!