GORGO.--It does most charmingly as it is.

PRAXINOE.--Do sit down.

GORGO.--Oh, what a thing spirit is! I have scarcely got to you alive, Praxinoe! What a huge crowd, what hosts of four-in-hands! Everywhere cavalry boots, everywhere men in uniform! And the road is endless; yes, you really live too far away!

PRAXINOE.--It is all the fault of that madman of mine. Here he came to the ends of the earth and took--a hole, not a house, and all that we might not be neighbors. The jealous wretch, always the same, ever for spite!

GORGO.--Don't talk of your husband Dinon like that, my dear girl, before the little boy--look how he is staring at you! Never mind, Zopyrion, sweet child, she is not speaking about papa.

PRAXINOE.--Our Lady! the child takes notice,

GORGO.--Nice papa!

PRAXINOE.--That papa of his the other day--we call every day "the other day"--went to get soap and rouge at the shop, and back he came to me with salt--the great big endless fellow!

GORGO.--Mine has the same trick, too, a perfect spend-thrift--Diocleides! Yesterday he got what he meant for five fleeces, and paid seven shillings apiece for--what do you suppose?--dogskins, shreds of old leather wallets, mere trash--trouble on trouble! But come, take your cloak and shawl. Let us be off to the palace of rich Ptolemy, the king, to see the Adonis; I hear the queen has provided something splendid!

PRAXINOE.--Fine folks do everything finely.