Lady Brute. Not unless we go thro' with't, and confess all. So, pr'ythee, for the Ease of our Consciences, let's hide nothing.
Bel. Agreed.
Lady Brute. Why, then, I confess, that I love to sit in the Fore-front of a Box; for if one sits behind, there's two Acts gone, perhaps, before one's found out. And when I am there, if I perceive the Men whispering and looking upon me, you must know I cannot for my Life forbear thinking they talk to my Advantage; and that sets a thousand little tickling Vanities on foot——
Bel. Just my Case, for all the World; but go on.
Lady Brute. I watch with Impatience for the next Jest in the Play, that I might laugh, and shew my white Teeth. If the Poet has been dull, and the Jest be long a-coming, I pretend to whisper one to my Friend, and from thence fall into a little small Discourse, in which I take occasion to shew my Face in all Humours, brisk, pleas'd, serious, melancholy, languishing——Not that what we say to one another causes any of these alterations. But——
Bel. Don't trouble yourself to explain. For if I'm not mistaken, you and I have had some of these necessary Dialogues before now with the same Intention.
Lady Brute. Why, I swear, Belinda, some People do give strange agreeable Airs to their Faces in speaking. Tell me true—Did you never practise in the Glass?
Bel. Why, did you?
Lady Brute. Yes, 'faith, many a time.
Bel. And I too, I own it; both how to speak myself, and how to look when others speak. But my Glass and I could never yet agree what Face I should make when they come blunt out with a nasty thing in a Play: For all the Men presently look upon the Women, that's certain: so laugh we must not, tho' our Stays burst for't, because that's telling Truth, and owning we understand the Jest. And to look serious is so dull, when the whole House is a laughing—