Miss Hard. He treated me with diffidence and respect; censured the manners of the age; admired the prudence of girls that never laughed; tired me with apologies for being tiresome; then left the room with a bow, and, "Madam, I would not for the world detain you."
Hard. He spoke to me, as if he knew me all his life before; asked twenty questions, and never waited for an answer; interrupted my best remarks with some silly pun; and when I was in my best story of the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, he asked if I had not a good hand at making punch. Yes, Kate, he asked your father if he was a maker of punch!
Miss Hard. One of us must certainly be mistaken.
Hard. If he be what he has shown himself, I'm determined he shall never have my consent.
Miss Hard. And if he be the sullen thing I take him, he shall never have mine.
Hard. In one thing then we are agreed—to reject him.
Miss Hard. Yes. But upon conditions. For if you should find him less impudent, and I more presuming; if you find him more respectful, and I more importunate—I don't know—the fellow is good enough for a man—Certainly we don't meet many such at a horse-race in the country.
Hard. If we should find him so—but that's impossible. The first appearance has done my business. I'm seldom deceived in that.
Miss Hard. And yet there may be many good qualities under that first appearance.
Hard. Ay, when a girl finds a fellow's outside to her taste, she then sets about guessing the rest of his furniture. With her, a smooth face stands for good sense, and a genteel figure, for every virtue.