you think so, dear? Why, it's my second name!"

Second Miss.--"Then I'm sure Captain Travers thinks it a BEAUTIFUL
name!"

Third Miss.--"He, he, he!"

Fourth Miss.--"What was he telling you at dinner that seemed to interest
you so?"

First Miss.--"O law, nothing!--that is, yes! Charles--that is,--Captain
Travers, is a sweet poet, and was reciting to me some lines that he had
composed upon a faded violet:--

"'The odor from the flower is gone,
That like thy--,

like thy something, I forget what it was; but his lines are sweet, and
so original too! I wish that horrid Sir John Todcaster had not begun his
story of the exciseman, for Lady Fitz-Boodle always quits the table when
he begins."

Third Miss.--"Do you like those tufts that gentlemen wear sometimes on
their chins?"

Second Miss.--"Nonsense, Mary!"

Third Miss.--"Well, I only asked, Jane. Frank thinks, you know, that
he shall very soon have one, and puts bear's-grease on his chin every
night."

Second Miss.--"Mary, nonsense!"

Third Miss.--"Well, only ask him. You know he came to our dressing-room
last night and took the pomatum away; and he says that when boys go to
Oxford they always--"

First Miss.--"O heavens! have you heard the news about the Lancers?
Charles--that is, Captain Travers, told it me!"

Second Miss.--"Law! they won't go away before the ball, I hope!"

First Miss.--"No, but on the 15th they are to shave their moustaches! He
says that Lord Tufto is in a perfect fury about it!"

Second Miss.--"And poor George Beardmore, too!" &c.

Here Tom upsets the coffee over his trousers, and the conversations end.
I can recollect a dozen such, and ask any man of sense whether such talk
amuses him?

Try again to speak to a young lady while you are dancing--what we call
in this country--a quadrille. What nonsense do you invariably give and
receive in return! No, I am a woman-scorner, and don't care to own it. I
hate young ladies! Have I not been in love with several, and has any one
of them ever treated me decently? I hate married women! Do they not hate
me? and, simply because I smoke, try to draw their husbands away from
my society? I hate dowagers! Have I not cause? Does not every dowager in
London point to George Fitz-Boodle as to a dissolute wretch whom young
and old should avoid?

And yet do not imagine that I have not loved. I have, and madly, many,
many times! I am but eight-and-thirty,* not past the age of passi