"FIFTH LADY. [Whispers the WIDOW.] I can't believe it; nay, I always thought it, madam.
"WIDOW. Sure, 'tis impossible the demure, prim thing. Sure all the world is hypocrisy Well, I thank my stars, whatsoever sufferings I have, I have none in reputation. I wonder at the men; I could never think her handsome. She has really a good shape and complexion but no mein; and no woman has the use of her beauty without mein. Her charms are dumb, they want utterance. But whither does distraction lead me to talk of charms?
"FIRST LADY. Charms, a chit's, a girl's charms! Come, let us widows be true to ourselves, keep our countenances and our characters, and a fig for the maids.
"SECOND LADY. Ay, since they will set up for our knowledge, why should not we for their ignorance?
"THIRD LADY. But, madam, o' Sunday morning at church, I curtsied to you and looked at a great fuss in a glaring light dress, next pew. That strong, masculine thing is a knight's wife, pretends to all the tenderness in the world, and would fain put the unwieldly upon us for the soft, the languid. She has of a sudden left her dairy, and sets up for a fine town lady; calls her maid Cisly, her woman speaks to her by her surname of Mrs. Cherryfist, and her great foot-boy of nineteen, big enough for a trooper, is stripped into a laced coat, now Mr. Page forsooth.
"FOURTH LADY. Oh, I have seen her. Well, I heartily pity some people for their wealth; they might have been unknown else—you would die, madam, to see her and her equipage: I thought her horses were ashamed of their finery; they dragged on, as if they were all at plough, and a great bashful-look'd booby behind grasp'd the coach, as if he had never held one.
"FIFTH LADY. Alas! some people think there is nothing but being fine to be genteel; but the high prance of the horses, and the brisk insolence of the servants in an equipage of quality are inimitable.
"FIRST LADY. Now you talk of an equipage, I envy this lady the beauty she will appear in a mourning coach, it will so become her complexion; I confess I myself mourned for two years for no other reason. Take up that hood there. Oh, that fair face with a veil! [They take up her hood.
"WIDOW. Fie, fie, ladies. But I have been told, indeed, black does become—
"SECOND LADY. Well, I'll take the liberty to speak it, there is young
Nutbrain has long had (I'll be sworn) a passion for this lady; but
I'll tell you one thing I fear she'll dislike, that is, he is younger
than she is.