AN OLD SOLDIER (looking up from a card table, whence he has heard the raging of BLADES). Miss Livvy, ma'am, what is this about the moon?
(PHOEBE smiles roguishly.)
PHOEBE (looking about her). I want my cloak, Aunt Susan.
MISS SUSAN. I have just lent it to poor Charlotte Parratt.
PHOEBE. Oh, auntie!
OLD SOLDIER. And now Miss Livvy cannot go into the shrubbery to see the moon; and she is so fond of the moon!
(MISS PHOEBE screws her nose at him merrily, and darts back to the dance, but she has left a defender behind her.)
A GALLANT (whose name we have not succeeded in discovering). Am I to understand, sir, that you are intimating disparagement of the moon? If a certain female has been graciously pleased to signify approval of that orb, any slight cast upon the moon, sir, I shall regard as a personal affront.
OLD SOLDIER. Hoity-toity.
(But he rises, and they face each other, as MISS SUSAN feels, for battle. She is about to rush between their undrawn swords when there is a commotion outside; a crowd gathers and opens to allow some officers to assist a fainting woman into the tent. It is MISS PHOEBE, and MISS SUSAN with a cry goes on her knees beside her. The tent has filled with the sympathetic and inquisitive, but CAPTAIN BROWN, as a physician, takes command, and by his order they retire. He finds difficulty in bringing the sufferer to, and gets little help from MISS SUSAN, who can only call upon MISS PHOEBE by name.)