Mme. Deschap. How forward these men are!--I think, child, we kept up our dignity. Any girl, however inexperienced, knows how to accept an offer, but it requires a vast deal of address to refuse one with proper condescension and disdain. I used to practise it at school with the dancing-master. Enter DAMAS. Damas. Good morning, cousin Deschappelles.--Well, Pauline, are you recovered from last night's ball?--So many triumphs must be very fatiguing. Even M. Glavis sighed most piteously when you departed; but that might be the effect of the supper. Pauline. M. Glavis, indeed! Mme. Deschap. M. Glavis?--as if my daughter would think of M. Glavis! Damas. Hey-day!--why not?--His father left him a very pretty fortune, and his birth is higher than yours, cousin Deschappelles. But perhaps you are looking to M. Beauseant,--his father was a marquis before the Revolution. Pauline. M. Beauseant!--Cousin, you delight in tormenting me! Mme. Deschap. Don't mind him, Pauline!--Cousin Damas, you have no susceptibility of feeling,--there is a certain indelicacy in all your ideas.--M. Beauseant knows already that he is no match for my daughter! Damas. Pooh! pooh! one would think you intended your daughter to marry a prince! Mme. Deschap. Well, and if I did?--what then?--Many a foreign prince-- Damas [interrupting her]. Foreign prince!--foreign fiddlestick!--you ought to be ashamed of such nonsense at your time of life. Mme. Deschap. My time of life!--That is an expression never applied to any lady till she is sixty-nine and three-quarters;--and only then by the clergyman of the parish. Enter Servant. Servant. Madame, the carriage is at the door. [Exit. Mme. Deschap. Come, child, put on your bonnet--you really have a very thorough-bred air--not at all like your poor father.--[Fondly]. Ah, you little coquette! when a young lady is always making mischief, it is a sure sign that she takes after her mother! Pauline. Good day, cousin Damas--and a better humor to you.--[Going back to the table and taking the flowers]. Who could have sent me these flowers? [Exeunt PAULINE and MADAME DESCHAPPELLES. Damas. That would be an excellent girl if her head had not been turned. I fear she is now become incorrigible! Zounds, what a lucky fellow I am to be still a bachelor! They may talk of the devotion of the sex--but the most faithful attachment in life is that of a woman in love--with herself. [Exit. SCENE II. The exterior of a small Village Inn--sign, the Golden Lion--A few leagues from Lyons, which is seen at a distance. Beau. [behind the scenes.] Yes, you may bait the horses; we shall rest here an hour. Enter BEAUSEANT and GLAVIS. Gla. Really, my dear Beauseant, consider that I have promised to spend a day or two with you at your chateau, that I am quite at your mercy for my entertainment,--and yet you are as silent and as gloomy as a mute at a funeral, or an Englishman at a party of pleasure. Beau. Bear with me!--the fact is that I am miserable.