_Aunt._ Ay, you had best be searched--That's like your calling the winds the fanning gales, before I don't know how much company; and the tree that was blown by it had, forsooth, a spirit imprisoned in the trunk of it. _Niece._ Ignorance! _Aunt._ Then a cloud this morning had a flying dragon in it. _Niece._ What eyes had you, that you could see nothing? For my part I look upon it to be a prodigy, and expect something extraordinary will happen to me before night.--But you have a gross relish of things. What noble descriptions in romances had been lost, if the writers had been persons of your goût? _Aunt._ I wish the authors had been hanged, and their books burnt, before you had seen 'em. _Niece._ Simplicity! _Aunt._ A parcel of improbable lies. _Niece._ Indeed, madam, your raillery is coarse---- _Aunt._ Fit only to corrupt young girls, and fill their heads with a thousand foolish dreams of I don't know what. _Niece._ Nay, now, madam, you grow extravagant. _Aunt._ What I say is not to vex, but advise you for your good. _Niece._ What, to burn Philocles, Artaxeres, Oroondates, and the rest of the heroic lovers, and take my country booby, cousin Humphry, for a husband! _Aunt._ Oh dear, oh dear, Biddy! Pray, good dear, learn to act and speak like the rest of the world; come, come, you shall marry your cousin and live comfortably. _Niece._ Live comfortably! What kind of life is that? A great heiress live comfortably! Pray, aunt, learn to raise your ideas--What is, I wonder, to live comfortably? _Aunt._ To live comfortably is to live with prudence and frugality, as we do in Lombard Street. _Niece._ As we do! That's a fine life, indeed, with one servant of each sex. Let's see how many things our coachman is good for--He rubs down his horses, lays the cloth, whets the knives, and sometimes makes beds. _Aunt._ A good servant should turn his hand to everything in a family. _Niece._ Nay, there's not a creature in our family that has not two or three different duties. As John is butler, footman, and coachman, so Mary is cook, laundress, and chamber-maid. _Aunt._ Well, and do you laugh at that? _Niece._ No, not I; nor at the coach-horses, though one has an easy trot for my uncle's riding, and t'other an easy pace for your side-saddle. _Aunt._ And so you jeer at the good management of your relations, do you? _Niece._ No, I'm well satisfied that all the house are creatures of business; but, indeed, was in hopes that my poor little lap-dog might have lived with me upon my fortune without an employment; but my uncle threatens every day to make him a turn-spit, that he too, in his sphere, may help us to live comfortably. _Aunt._ Hark ye, cousin Biddy.