Grim. The carriage is waiting for you, Miss Somerville, and the driver has put on your baggage.
Cousin. I have hired that carriage by the hour, and so am in no hurry. Your excuse for your irritability will be, I suppose, that it is constitutional, and not to be controlled. A selfish, paltry, miserable excuse! I have turned down a leaf in Dr. Johnson's works, and will read what he says in regard to tempers like yours.
Grim. You are always quoting Dr. Johnson! Cousin, I can not endure it! Dr. Johnson is a bore!
Cousin. Oh, yes! to evil-doers,—but to none else. Hear him: "There is in the world a class of mortals known, and contentedly known, by the appellation of passionate men, who imagine themselves entitled, by this distinction, to be provoked on every slight occasion, and to vent their rage in vehement and fierce vociferations, in furious menaces, and licentious reproaches."
Grim. That will do.
Cousin. "Men of this kind," he tells us, "are often pitied rather than censured, and are not treated with the severity which their neglect of the ease of all about them, might justly provoke." But he adds: "It is surely not to be observed without indignation, that men may be found of minds mean enough to be satisfied with this treatment; wretches who are proud to obtain the privilege of madmen, and——"
Grim. I will hear no more! Have done!
Cousin. So the shaft went home! I am not sorry.
Grim. No one but a meddlesome old maid would think of insulting a man in his own house.
Cousin. So, when, at a loss for a vindication, you reproach me with being an old maid! Cousin, it does not distress me, either to be an old maid, or to be called one. I must, however, remark, that the manhood that can charge against a woman her single state, either as a matter of ridicule or reproach, is not quite up to my standard.