Har.  What generous man would not smile at the foibles of a woman whose heart is only gay with prosperity and lively youth; but has not the least malice in it?  Has not she made choice of your lordship in preference of any other man?  She rallies every one; she can’t help it:  she is to blame.—­Indeed, Lady G——­, you are.  Your brother felt your edge; he once smarted by it, and was angry with you.—­But afterwards, observing that it was her way, my lord; that it was a kind of constitutional gaiety of heart, and exercised on those she loved best; he forgave, rallied her again, and turned her own weapons upon her; and every one in company was delighted with the spirit of both.—­You love her, my lord.

Lord G. Never man more loved a woman.  I am not an ill-natured man—­

Lady G. But a captious, a passionate one, Lord G——.  Who’d have thought it?

Lord G. Never was there, my dear Miss Byron, such a strangely-aggravating creature!  She could not be so, if she did not despise me.

Lady G. Fiddle-faddle, silly man!  And so you said before.  If you thought so, you take the way, (don’t you?) to mend the matter, by dancing and capering about, and putting yourself into all manner of disagreeable attitudes; and even sometimes being ready to foam at the mouth?—­I told him, Miss Byron, There he stands, let him deny it, if he can; that I married a man with another face.  Would not any other man have taken this for a compliment to his natural undistorted face, and instantly have pulled off the ugly mask of passion, and shewn his own?—­

Lord G. You see, you see, the air, Miss Byron!—­How ludicrously does she now, even now—­

Lady G. See, Miss Byron!—­How captious!—­Lord G——­ ought to have a termagant wife:  one who could return rage for rage.  Meekness is my crime.—­I cannot be put out of temper.—­Meekness was never before attributed to woman as a fault.

Lord G. Good God!—­Meekness!—­Good God!

Lady G. But, Harriet, do you judge on which side the grievance lies.—­ Lord G——­ presents me with a face for his, that I never saw him wear before marriage:  He has cheated me, therefore.  I shew him the same face that I ever wore, and treat him pretty much in the same manner (or I am mistaken) that I ever did:  and what reason can he give, that will not demonstrate him to be the most ungrateful of men, for the airs he gives himself?  Airs that he would not have presumed to put on eight days ago.  Who then, Harriet, has reason to complain of grievance; my lord, or I?

Lord G. You see, Miss Byron—­Can there be any arguing with a woman who knows herself to be in jest, in all she says?

Har.  Why then, my lord, make a jest of it.  What will not bear an argument, will not be worth one’s anger.

Lord G. I leave it to Miss Byron, Lady G——­, to decide between us, as she pleases.