Crab. I am very glad you think so, ma’am.

Mrs. Can. She has a charming fresh colour.

Lady Teaz. Yes, when it is fresh put on.

Mrs. Can. Oh, fie! I’ll swear her colour is natural: I have seen it come and go!

Lady Teaz. I dare swear you have, ma’am: it goes off at night, and comes again in the morning.

Sir Ben. True, ma’am, it not only comes and goes; but, what’s more, egad, her maid can fetch and carry it!

Mrs. Can. Ha! ha! ha! how I hate to hear you talk so! But surely, now, her sister is, or was, very handsome.

Crab. Who? Mrs. Evergreen? O Lord! she’s six-and-fifty if she’s an hour!

Mrs. Can. Now positively you wrong her; fifty-two or fifty-three is the utmost—and I don’t think she looks more.

Sir Ben. Ah! there’s no judging by her looks, unless one could see her face.

Lady Sneer. Well, well, if Mrs. Evergreen does take some pains to repair the ravages of time, you must allow she effects it with great ingenuity; and surely that’s better than the careless manner in which the widow Ochre caulks her wrinkles.

Sir Ben. Nay, now, Lady Sneerwell, you are severe upon the widow. Come, come, ’tis not that she paints so ill—but, when she has finished her face, she joins it on so badly to her neck, that she looks like a mended statue, in which the connoisseur may see at once that the head is modern, though the trunk’s antique!

Crab. Ha! ha! ha! Well said, nephew!

Mrs Can. Ha! ha! ha! Well, you make me laugh; but I vow I hate you for it. What do you think of Miss Simper?

Sir Ben. Why, she has very pretty teeth.

Lady Teaz. Yes; and on that account, when she is neither speaking nor laughing (which very seldom happens), she never absolutely shuts her mouth, but leaves it always on ajar, as it were —thus.

[Shows her teeth.

Mrs. Can. How can you be so ill-natured?

Lady Teaz. Nay, I allow even that’s better than the pains Mrs. Prim takes to conceal her losses in front. She draws her mouth till it positively resembles the aperture of a poor’s-box, and all her words appear to slide out edgewise, as it were—thus: How do you do, madam? Yes, madam.

[Mimics.

Lady Sneer. Very well, Lady Teazle; I see you can be a little severe.

Lady Teaz. In defence of a friend it is but justice. But here comes Sir Peter to spoil our pleasantry.

Enter Sir Peter Teazle.