“Oh, you fop!—but is it not true?”
“By my honour, I fear not; my rivals are too numerous and too powerful. Look now, yonder! how they already flock around the illustrious heiress; note those smiles and simpers. Is it not pretty to see those very fine gentlemen imitating bumpkins at a fair, and grinning their best for a gold ring! But you need not fear me, Lady Hasselton, my love cannot wander if it would. In the quaint thought of Sidney,* love having once flown to my heart, burned its wings there, and cannot fly away.”
* In the “Arcadia,” that museum of oddities and beauties.
“La, you now!” said the Beauty; “I do not comprehend you exactly: your master of the graces does not teach you your compliments properly.”
“Yes, he does, but in your presence I forget them; and now,” I added, lowering my voice into the lowest of whispers, “now that you are assured of my fidelity, will you not learn at last to discredit rumours and trust to me?”
“I love you too well!” answered the Lady Hasselton in the same tone, and that answer gives an admirable idea of the affection of every coquette! love and confidence with them are qualities that have a natural antipathy, and can never be united. Our tete-a-tete was at an end; the people round us became social, and conversation general.
“Betterton acts to-morrow night,” cried the Lady Pratterly: “we must go!”
“We must go,” cried the Lady Hasselton.
“We must go!” cried all.
And so passed the time till the puppet-show was over, and my attendance dispensed with.