MRS. FAIN. She talked last night of endeavouring at a match between Millamant and your uncle.
MIRA. That was by Foible’s direction and my instruction, that she might seem to carry it more privately.
MRS. FAIN. Well, I have an opinion of your success, for I believe my lady will do anything to get an husband; and when she has this, which you have provided for her, I suppose she will submit to anything to get rid of him.
MIRA. Yes, I think the good lady would marry anything that resembled a man, though ’twere no more than what a butler could pinch out of a napkin.
MRS. FAIN. Female frailty! We must all come to it, if we live to be old, and feel the craving of a false appetite when the true is decayed.
MIRA. An old woman’s appetite is depraved like that of a girl. ’Tis the green-sickness of a second childhood, and, like the faint offer of a latter spring, serves but to usher in the fall, and withers in an affected bloom.
MRS. FAIN. Here’s your mistress.
SCENE V.
[To them] Mrs. Millamant, Witwoud, Mincing.
MIRA. Here she comes, i’faith, full sail, with her fan spread and streamers out, and a shoal of fools for tenders.—Ha, no, I cry her mercy.