"O, these girls all talk of dying, they all protest and whimper and pout," said Lady Tredgold. "But they have to obey their fathers in the end, and then somehow it falls out that they are monstrously fond of their husbands, and you will see a couple who have been brought together by harsh fathers and the tyranny of circumstance transformed after marriage into such doating lovers as to sicken the town by their endearments and silly praises of each other. No girl should ever be allowed to have her own way in the disposal of herself or her fortune." "You talk, madam, like Lady Capulet." "If I do, it is unawares, sir, for I have not the honour of that lady's acquaintance. Will you do me the favour to ring for candles, Mr. Durnford? My people neglect us in these strange quarters. Perhaps you would be agreeable to join us in a hand at quadrille, if you have nothing better to do with the next hour." Herrick protested that there could not be any better employment for his evening. Her ladyship's people consisted of a man and a maid. The candles were brought by the man, who put out the cards and set the table with the air of performing a nightly duty; and the ladies and their beau sat down to that favourite and scientific game which preceded "whisk" in fashion and popularity. "I am told the old Duchess of Marlborough prefers roly-poly to quadrille or ombre," said Herrick, as the cards were being dealt. "O, there is a vein of vulgarity in that old woman which shows itself in everything she does," replied Lady Tredgold scornfully. "I detest the virago." "And yet there is an element of greatness in her character," said Herrick. "Great talents, great beauty, great fortune, have all been hers: and she has been conspicuous in an age of lax morality as a woman of spotless virtue." "O sir, it is an ill thing perhaps for any woman to say in the presence of unmarried daughters, but I own I agree with Joseph Addison that a woman has no right to practise every other vice on the ground that she possesses one virtue, even though that virtue of chastity is, I grant you, the chief merit in woman." "I am with you there, madam, and agree that even sad Lucretia's modesty would scarce justify a woman in shrewing her husband, maligning her innocent granddaughter, and quarrelling with every member of her family: and yet I own to some touch of half-reluctant admiration for the mighty Sarah. Mr. Cibber told me once how it was his task to attend upon her at a supper in Nottingham Castle, about the time of King James's flight from this kingdom, and that her beauty appeared to him as an emanation of Divinity, rather than a mere earthly loveliness. And then she is such a magnificent virago. The woman who had the spunk to cut off her splendid tresses, the chief glory of her womanhood, and fling them across her husband's path in a freak of temper--"