Lady E. I ask your pardon, madam, for being so awkward, but I confess I did not expect so elevated a salute.
Miss Als. Dear Lady Emily, I had no notion of its not being universal. In France, the touch of the lips, just between the eyebrows, has been adopted for years.
Lady E. I perfectly acknowledge the propriety of the custom. It is almost the only spot of the face where the touch would not risk a confusion of complexions.
Miss Als. He! he! he! what a pretty thought!
Mrs. Blandish. How I have longed for this day!—Come, let me put an end to ceremony, and join the hands of the sweetest pair that ever nature and fortune marked for connexion.
[Joins their Hands.
Miss Als. Thank you, my good Blandish, though I was determined to break the ice, Lady Emily, in the first place I met you. But you were not at Lady Dovecourt's last night.
Lady E. [Affectedly.] No, I went home directly from the Opera: projected the revival of a cap: read a page in the trials of Temper; went to bed and dreamed I was Belinda in the Rape of the Lock.
Mrs. Blandish. Elegant creature!
Miss Als. [Aside.] I must have that air, if I die for it. [Imitating.] I too came home early; supped with my old gentleman; made him explain my marriage articles, dower, and heirs entail; read a page in a trial of divorce, and dreamed of a rose-colour equipage, with emblems, of Cupids issuing out of coronets.