_] 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.

_L. Ha_.--Vanity! All the matter is, we gay people are more sincere
than you wise folks; all your life's an art.--Speak you real.--Look
you there.--[_Hauling her to the glass._] Are you not struck with a
secret pleasure when you view that bloom in your look, that harmony
in your shape, that promptitude in your mien?

_L. Ch._--Well,