Mrs. _Rack._ How so, pray? Good-morning t'ye both. Here, here's a hand a-piece for you. (_They kiss her hands._) _Flut._ How so! Because it has given you so many beauties. Mrs. _Rack._ Delightful compliment! What do you think of that, Villers? _Vill._ That he and his compliments are alike--shewy, but won't bear examining.----So you brought Miss Hardy to town last night? Mrs. _Rack._ Yes, I should have brought her before, but I had a fall from my horse, that confined me a week.--I suppose in her heart she wished me hanged a dozen times an hour. _Flut._ Why? Mrs. _Rack._ Had she not an expecting Lover in town all the time? She meets him this morning at the Lawyer's.--I hope she'll charm him; she's the sweetest girl in the world. _Vill._ Vanity, like murder, will out.--You have convinced me you think yourself more charming. Mrs. _Rack._ How can that be? _Vill._ No woman ever praises another, unless she thinks herself superior in the very perfections she allows. _Flut._ Nor no man ever rails at the sex, unless he is conscious he deserves their hatred. Mrs. _Rack._ Thank ye, Flutter--I'll owe ye a _bouquet_ for that. I am going to visit the new-married Lady Frances Touchwood.--Who knows her husband? _Flut._ Every body. Mrs. _Rack._ Is there not something odd in his character? _Vill._ Nothing, but that he is passionately fond of his wife;--and so petulant is his love, that he open'd the cage of a favourite Bullfinch, and sent it to catch Butterflies, because she rewarded its song with her kisses. Mrs. _Rack._ Intolerable monster! Such a brute deserves---- _Vill._ Nay, nay, nay, nay, this is your sex now----Give a woman but one stroke of character, off she goes, like a ball from a racket; sees the whole man, marks him down for an angel or a devil, and so exhibits him to her acquaintance.--This monster! this brute! is one of the worthiest fellows upon earth; sound sense, and a liberal mind; but doats on his wife to such excess, that he quarrels with every thing she admires, and is jealous of her tippet and nosegay. Mrs. _Rack._ Oh, less love for me, kind Cupid! I can see no difference between the torment of such an affection, and hatred. _Flut._ Oh, pardon me, inconceivable difference, inconceivable; I see it as clearly as your bracelet. In the one case the husband would say, as Mr. Snapper said t'other day, Zounds! Madam, do you suppose that _my_ table, and _my_ house, and _my_ pictures!--_A-propos, des Bottes._ There was the divinest Plague of Athens sold yesterday at Langford's! the dead figures so natural, you would have sworn they had been alive! Lord Primrose bid Five hundred--Six, said Lady Carmine.--A thousand, said Ingot the Nabob.--Down went the hammer.--A _rouleau_ for your bargain, said Sir Jeremy Jingle. And what answer do you think Ingot made him? Mrs. _Racket._ Why, took the offer.