The hangman retired; and Lady Darnley was addressed by a few women in tattered robes. Making an apology for their dress, they said, it was her ladyship who had condemned them to those unseemly garbs. She inquired, In what way she was culpable to them? They answered, By not only promoting industry, which was highly detrimental to their interests, but also procuring by her munificence theatrical and other entertainments for mankind, which completed their misfortunes, as it rendered ineffectual their allurements:--that they might formerly (out of the profits of their industry) have purchased annuities, like other eminent personages in the age, and _lived comfortably_ on the _distresses of others_; but that they had always too much conscience, and too great and generous souls for that:--that they were now reduced to the alternative of removing from that part of the country, or starving where they were; and, preferring the first to the last, they had determined to go to Birmingham, where, under the auspices of the magistrates[65] of that place, they would have a good chance of succeeding in their profession; as it had always been found that recreations of some kind are necessary, and that if innocent amusements were denied, mankind would have recourse to the other. The Goddess of Folly, with her cap and bells, approached Lady Darnley; who, smiling, asked her what had procured her the honor of her company? She answered, That being excluded at all other times from these regions, it induced her to come then, where she flattered herself, for one night in her life, not to be ridiculed; as it is only Absurdity that laughs at Folly. Her ladyship replied, That none indeed were entitled to smile at another's weakness, who are conscious of their own. Miss Bingley, by her aunt's request, was in the character of a pastoral shepherdess, and affected to by vastly coy, and a great huntress. She said she wielded the crook and the javelin with equal dexterity; and that though she was terrified at the voice or appearance of a lover, yet she made nothing of lopping off the head of a wild boar, or of thrusting a spear into the jaws of a lion. She was pursued by (James Mordaunt as) a pastoral lover. Lady Darnley told her that such swains are mighty good-natured, and never do any mischief to any _but themselves_; a leap from a rock, or a plunge into a river, being their usual catastrophe.