Enter Tony and Miss Neville, followed by Mrs. Hardcastle and Hastings.
Tony. What do you follow me for, cousin Con? I wonder you're not ashamed, to be so very engaging.
Miss Nev. I hope, cousin, one may speak to one's own relations, and not be to blame?
Tony. Ay, but I know what sort of a relation you want to make me though; but it won't do. I tell you, cousin Con, it won't do, so I beg you'll keep your distance; I want no nearer relationship.
She follows, coquetting him to the back-scene.
Mrs. Hard. Well! I vow, Mr. Hastings, you are very entertaining. There's nothing in the world I love to talk of so much as London, and the fashions, though I was never there myself.
Hast. Never there! You amaze me! From your air and manner, I concluded you had been bred all your life either at Ranelagh, St. James's, or Tower Wharf.
Mrs. Hard. O! sir, you're only pleased to say so. We country persons can have no manner at all. I'm in love with the town, and that serves to raise me above some of our neighbouring rustics; but who can have a manner, that has never seen the Pantheon, the Grotto Gardens, the Borough, and such places, where the nobility chiefly resort? All I can do, is to enjoy London at second-hand. I take care to know every tête-à-tête from the Scandalous Magazine, and have all the fashions, as they come out, in a letter from the two Miss Rickets of Crooked-lane. Pray how do you like this head, Mr. Hastings?
Hast. Extremely elegant and dégagée, upon my word, madam. Your friseur is a Frenchman, I suppose?
Mrs. Hard. I protest I dressed it myself from a print in the Ladies' Memorandum Book for the last year.