Maria. I am very sorry, ma’am, the town has so little to do.
Mrs. C. True, true, child; but there’s no stopping people’s tongues. I own I was hurt to hear it, as I indeed was to learn, from the same quarter, that your guardian, Sir Peter, and Lady Teazle, have not agreed lately as well as could be wished.
Maria. ’Tis strangely impertinent for people to busy themselves so.
Mrs. C. Very true, child; but what’s to be done? People will talk, there’s no preventing it. Why, it was but yesterday I was told that Miss Gadabout had eloped with Sir Filigree Flirt. But, lord! there’s no minding what one hears; though, to be sure, I had this from very good authority.
Maria. Such reports are highly scandalous.
Mrs. C. So they are, child; shameful, shameful! But the world is so censorious, no character escapes. Lord, now, who would have suspected your friend, Miss Prim, of an indiscretion? Yet such is the ill-nature of people that they say her uncle stopped her last week, just as she was stepping into the York mail with her dancing-master.
Maria. I’ll answer for’t, there are no grounds for that report.
Mrs. C. Ay, no foundation in the world, I dare swear; no more, probably, than for the story circulated last month of Mrs. Festino’s affair with Colonel Cassino; though, to be sure, that matter was never rightly cleared up.
Joseph. The licence of invention some people take is monstrous, indeed.
Maria. ’Tis so; but, in my opinion, those who report such things are equally culpable.