[_Going._ _Mrs. Blandish._ Hark you, Blandish--a good wish before you go: To make your success complete, may you find but half your own vanity in those you have to work on! _Blandish._ Thank you, my dear Letty; this is not the only tap you have hit me to-day, and you are right; for if you and I did not sometimes speak truth to each other, we should forget there was such a quality incident to the human mind. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _LORD GAYVILLE's Apartment._ _Enter LORD GAYVILLE and MR. CLIFFORD._ _Lord G._ My dear Clifford, urge me no more. How can a man of your liberality of sentiment descend to be the advocate of my uncle's family avarice? _Cliff._ My lord, you do not live for yourself. You have an ancient name and title to support. _Lord G._ Preposterous policy! Whenever the father builds, games, or electioneers, the heir and title roust go to market. Oh, the happy families Sir Clement Flint will enumerate, where this practice has prevailed for centuries; and the estate been improved in every generation, though specifically spent by each individual! _Cliff._ But you thought with him a month ago, and wrote with transport of the match--"Whenever I think of Miss Alscrip, visions of equipage and splendour, villas and hotels, the delights of independence and profuseness, dance in my imagination." _Lord G._ It is true, I was that dissipated, fashionable wretch. _Cliff._ Come, this reserve betrays a consciousness of having acted wrong: You would not hide what would give me pleasure: But I'll not be officious. _Lord G._ Hear me without severity, and I'll tell you all. Such a woman, such an assemblage of all that's lovely in the sex!---- _Cliff._ Well, but--the who, the how, the where? _Lord G._ I met her walking, and alone; and, indeed, so humbly circumstanced as to carry a parcel in her own hand. _Cliff._ I cannot but smile at this opening of your adventure.--But proceed. _Lord G._ Her dress was such as a judicious painter would chuse to characterise modesty. But natural grace and elegance stole upon the observation, and, through the simplicity of a quaker, showed all we could conceive of a goddess. I gazed, and turned idolater. _Cliff._ [_Smiling._] You may as well finish the description in poetry at once; you are on the very verge of it. _Lord G._ She was under the persecution of one of those beings peculiar to this town, who assume the name of gentlemen, upon the sole credentials of a boot, a switch, and round hat--the things that escape from counters and writing desks, to disturb public places, insult foreigners, and put modest women out of countenance. I had no difficulty in the rescue. _Cliff._ And, having silenced the dragon, in the true spirit of chivalry, you conducted the damsel to her castle.