L. Ha.—Nay, good sister, you may as well talk to me [looking at herself as she speaks] as you sit staring at a book which I know you can't attend.—Good Dr. Lucas may have writ there what he pleases, but there's no putting Francis, Lord Hardy, now Earl of Brumpton, out of your head, or making him absent from your eyes. Do but look on me, now, and deny it if you can.
L. Ch.—You are the maddest girl [smiling].
L. Ha.—Look ye, I knew you could not say it and forbear laughing [looking over Charlotte].—Oh! I see his name as plain as you do—F—r—a—n Fran,—c—i—s, cis, Francis, 'tis in every line of the book.
L. Ch. [rising]—It's in vain, I see, to mind anything in such impertinent company—but granting 'twere as you say, as to my Lord Hardy—'tis more excusable to admire another than oneself.
L. Ha.—No, I think not,—yes, I grant you, than really to be vain of one's person, but I don't admire myself—Pish! I don't believe my eyes to have that softness. [Looking in the glass.] They an't so piercing: no, 'tis only stuff, the men will be talking.—Some people are such admirers of teeth—Lord, what signifies teeth! [Showing her teeth.] A very black-a-moor has as white a set of teeth as I.—No, sister, I don't admire myself, but I've a spirit of contradiction in me: I don't know I'm in love with myself, only to rival the men.
L. Ch.—Aye, but Mr. Campley will gain ground ev'n of that rival of his, your dear self.
L. Ha.—Oh, what have I done to you, that you should name that insolent intruder? A confident, opinionative fop. No, indeed, if I am, as a poetical lover of mine sighed and sung of both sexes,
The public envy and the public care,
I shan't be so easily catched—I thank him—I want but to be sure, I should heartily torment him by banishing him, and then consider whether he should depart this life or not.
L. Ch.—Indeed, sister, to be serious with you, this vanity in your humour does not at all become you.