_Miss Alton._ Madam, you do me great honour, and I very readily obey you. _Mrs. Blandish._ I wish you joy, Miss Alton, of the most enviable situation a young person of elegant talents could be raised to. You and I will vie with each other, to prevent our dear countess ever knowing a melancholy hour. She has but one fault to correct--the giving way to the soft effusions of a too tender heart. _Enter SERVANT._ _Serv._ Madam, a letter---- _Miss Als._ It's big enough for a state packet--Oh! mercy, a petition--for Heaven's sake, Miss Alton, look it over. [_MISS ALTON reads._] I should as soon read one of Lady Newchapel's methodist sermons--What does it contain? _Miss Alton._ Madam, an uncommon series of calamities, which prudence could neither see, nor prevent: the reverse of a whole family from affluence and content to misery and imprisonment; and it adds, that the parties have the honour, remotely, to be allied to you. _Miss Als._ Remote relations! ay, they always think one's made of money. _Enter another SERVANT._ _2 Serv._ A messenger, madam, from the animal repository, with the only puppy of the Peruvians, and the refusal at twenty guineas. _Miss Als._ Twenty guineas! Were he to ask fifty, I must have him. _Mrs. Blandish._ [_Offering to run out._] I vow I'll give him the first kiss. _Miss Als._ [_Stopping her._] I'll swear you shan't. _Miss Alton._ Madam, I was just finishing the petition. _Miss Als._ It's throwing money away--But give him a crown. [_Exit with MRS. BLANDISH striving which shall be first._ _Miss Alton._ "The soft effusions of a too tender heart." The proof is excellent. That the covetous should be deaf to the miserable, I can conceive; but I should not have believed, if I had not seen, that a taste for profusion did not find its first indulgence in benevolence. [_Exit._ ACT THE THIRD. SCENE I. _MISS ALSCRIP's Dressing-room._ _MISS ALTON, discovered._ _Miss Alton._ Thanks to Mrs. Blandish's inexhaustible talent for encomium, I shall be relieved from one part of a companion that my nature revolts at. But who comes here? It's well if I shall not be exposed to impertinences I was not aware of. _Enter CHIGNON._ _Chignon._ [_Aside._] Ma foi, la voila--I will lose no time to pay my addresse--Now for de humble maniere, and de unperplex assurance of my contrée [_Bowing with a French shrug.--MISS ALTON turning over Music Books._] Mademoiselle, est-il permis? may I presume to offer you my profound homage [_MISS ALTON not taking Notice._] Mademoiselle--if you vill put your head into my hands, I vill give a distinction to your beauty, that shall make you and me de conversation of all de town. _Miss Alton._ I request, Mr. Chignon, you will devote your ambition to your own part of the compliment. _Mr. Als._ [_Without._] Where is my daughter?