_Scrub._ Sir! _Sul._ Get things ready to shave my head. [_Exit._ _Mrs. Sul._ Have a care of coming near his temples, Scrub, for fear you meet something there that may turn the edge of your razor. [_Exit_ SCRUB.] Inveterate stupidity! did you ever know so hard, so obstinate a spleen as his? O sister, sister! I shall never have good of the beast till I get him to town; London, dear London, is the place for managing and breaking a husband. _Dor._ And has not a husband the same opportunities there for humbling a wife? _Mrs. Sul._ No, no, child; 'tis a standing maxim in conjugal discipline, that when a man would enslave his wife, he hurries her into the country; and when a lady would be arbitrary with her husband, she wheedles her booby up to town----A man dare not play the tyrant in London, because there are so many examples to encourage the subject to rebel, O Dorinda, Dorinda! a fine woman may do any thing in London: On my conscience, she may raise an army of forty thousand men. _Dor._ I fancy, sister, you have a mind to be trying your power that way here in Litchfield; you have drawn the French Count to your colours already. _Mrs. Sul._ The French are a people that can't live without their gallantries. _Dor._ And some English that I know, sister, are not averse to such amusements. _Mrs. Sul._ Well, sister, since the truth must out, it may do as well now as hereafter; I think, one way to rouse my lethargic, sottish, husband, is to give him a rival; security begets negligence in all people, and men must be alarmed to make them alert in their duty; women are like pictures, of no value in the hands of a fool, till he hears men of sense bid high for the purchase. _Dor._ This might do, sister, if my brother's understanding were to be convinced into a passion for you; but, I believe, there's a natural aversion on his side; and I fancy, sister, that you don't come much behind him, if you dealt fairly. _Mrs. Sul._ I own it; we are united contradictions, fire and water. But I could be contented, with a great many other wives, to humour the censorious vulgar, and give the world an appearance of living well with my husband, could I bring him but to dissemble a little kindness, to keep me in countenance. _Dor._ But how do you know, sister, but that instead of rousing your husband by this artifice to a counterfeit kindness, he should awake in a real fury? _Mrs. Sul._ Let him:--If I can't entice him to the one, I would provoke him to the other. _Dor._ But how must I behave myself between ye? _Mrs. Sul._ You must assist me. _Dor._ What, against my own brother! _Mrs. Sul._ He is but your half brother, and I'm your entire friend: If I go a step beyond the bounds of honour, leave me; till then, I expect you should go along with me in every thing; while I trust my honour in your hands, you may trust your brother's in mine--The Count is to dine here to-day. _Dor._ 'Tis a strange thing, sister, that I can't like that man.