_Lady Answerall._ Why, that 'tis older than MARY WOOLSTONECROFT, and, in fact, originated about the time when EVE took the first bite at the first apple. _Miss Notable._ Heigho! 'Tis fine to sit here in the Shades, and say so; but I own I should like well enough to ruffle it in new-fangled clubs and select coteries, to be the talk of the town as APHRA BEHN was, only in the irreproachable company of popular _savants_ and Bishops' sons; to see my niminy-piminy neuroticisms go into their tenth edition, have my anti-matrimonial mouthings discussed in monthly magazines and religious newspapers, and--have a free slap at the monster, Man, whose best voluntary treatment of us means, at bottom, nothing better than a golden cage and a silken gag. _Lady Sparkish._ "Fine words! I wonder where you stole 'em!"--as the Dean said concerning Chief Justice WHITSHED'S coach-motto. _Miss Notable._ Humph! Did he not also say, in dealing with _The Furniture of a Woman's Mind_-- "For conversation well endued She calls it witty to be rude"? _Lady Sparkish._ What _do_ you mean, Miss? _Miss Notable._ Ha! ha! ha! Not much. But, as Lady ANSWERALL used to say, when we had a dish of tea and tittle-tattle together in the sweet, solid, wicked, bewitching old modish days, "You know I'm old Tell-truth, and love to call a spade a spade." _Lady Sparkish._ Oh, I see. As the dear old Dean also said-- "Say, foolish females, bold and blind, Say, by what fatal turn of mind, Are you on vices most severe Wherein yourselves have greatest share?" [_Here arises a general criss-cross clatter of contradictions, and the gentlemen come in to join the ladies._ _Mr. Neverout_ (_quoting_)-- "Now voices over voices rise, While each to be the loudest vies; They contradict, affirm, dispute, No single tongue one moment mute; All mad to speak and none to hearken, They set the very lap-dog barking." We were disputing, ladies, as to whether these lines were SWIFT'S or another's. Can _you_ settle the point? _Miss Notable_ (_snappishly_). Oh, ask a policeman--or a New Woman!!! * * * * * OUR OWN TORRIST IN NORTH DEVON. [Illustration] _On Torrs Walks, Ilfracombe._--"Here they come by twos and twos, In twos on Torrs they swarm." Quotation adapted. "Two" form a Company Limited on Torrs Walks. The third person present is "out of it." They tell me these couples are all honeymooners. Perhaps; but _if they are not, they ought to be_. That's all. * * * Maybe these duologues are only private rehearsals. Practice makes perfect. I have no special information on this mysterious subject. * * * _On the above-mentioned Honeymooners_-- "Marriages are made in heav'n," When begun in Northern Dev'n. * * *