“Well, I dare say I am wrong,” cried Lady Barbara, “but I like you better now you are a downright—ahem!—than when you were only an insipid non-intellectual—you are greatly improved.”
Ips. “In what respects?”
Lady Barb. “Did I not tell you? browner and more impudent; but tell me,” said she, resuming her sly, satirical tone, “how is it that you, who used to be the pink of courtesy, dance and sing over the wreck of my fortunes?”
“Because they are not wrecked.”
“I thought I told you my specie is gone down in the Tisbe.”
Ipsden. “But the Tisbe has not gone down.”
Lady Barb. “I tell you it is.”
Ipsden. “I assure you it is not.”
Lady Barb. “It is not?”
Ipsden. “Barbara! I am too happy, I begin to nourish such sweet hopes once more. Oh, I could fall on my knees and bless you for something you said just now.”