Mrs. Lov.  Here do I follow and caress my Lady, in hopes to steal a Spark ’mongst her Admirers; I have five hundred Pounds in the fourteen per Cent, a Gentlewoman’s Fortune in past Ages, but now ’twon’t buy a Haberdasher of small Ware.  Sir Harry offers me a genteel Settlement; Time was, when a kept Madam elbow’d the whole Drawing-Room; but now we have a virtuous Court agen, a Lord’s Mistress is almost as despicable as a Citizen’s Wife.—­Suppose I trick the Collonel into Marriage—­To bridle at a Review in Hyde-Park, have rich Plunder brought me from Flanders, and boast in Company how much my Husband ballances the Pow’r of Europe; but then comes Peace, and Half-pay, and the Brigadier’s Lady must condescend to dress Heads, make Mantoes, or vainly feed her Pride, by personating what she really was on the most renown’d Drury-Lane Theatre.—­Suppose I rail at the Government, and so trap the rich Major; but then he’s trapt in a Plot, some poor Lord begs his Estate, and I’m to live upon the mighty Comfort of having it again when the Pretender comes—­Or what if I wheedle in with Mr. Nick-nack—­To have a fine House in Billiter-Lane, prodigious great Dinners, and ready Cash for Play.  And, faith, now-a-days, a rich Merchant’s Wife keeps as late Hours, Games as high, and makes as bulky a Figure as e’er a Dutchess in the two united Kingdoms.

    Enter Sir Harry.

Sir Har.  How kind this was, my dear, pretty Mrs. Lovejoy, to leave so much good Company to meet me here alone.

Mrs. Lov.  How kind you are to your self Sir Harry, in harbouring so ridiculous a Notion.

Sir Har.  Are you resolv’d then, Madam, to let this gay, this proper well-set Person o’ mine pine away like a green Sickness Girl, when I have so generously offer’d you two hundred Pound a Year, only to be a little whimsical with you.

Mrs. Lov.  Two hundred a year! wou’d you make a Whore of me Sir Harry?

Sir Har.  A Whore! have a care, Child, who you reflect upon, a Lady of two hundred a Year, a Whore; Whores are Creatures that wear Pattens and Straw-hats.  I’d fain hear any body call a kept Mistress, Whore, while there’s Law to be had, if I were she, I’d make ’em severely pay for’t.

Mrs. Lov.  But pray, Sir Harry, where’s the Difference between a common Woman, and one that’s kept; they have equally lost their Reputation, and no body of any Character will visit ’em.

Sir Har.  Visit ’em!  Ladies of different Orders shou’d converse amongst themselves, I know a Set of kept Mistresses that visit one another with all the Ceremony of Countesses, take place of one another according to the Degree of their Keepers, are call’d to one another’s Labours, and live in perfect Sister-hood like the Grand Seignor’s Seraglio; two of ’em indeed had a violent Quarrel t’other day, but ’twas only about State Affairs, one happening to be a Whig, and t’other a Tory.