Arte. There are places where all people may be adored, and we ought to know ourselves so well as to choose them.

Dor. That’s very true; your little courtier’s wife, who speaks to the king but once a month, need but go to a town lady, and there she may vapour and cry,—­“The king and I,” at every word.  Your town lady, who is laughed at in the circle, takes her coach into the city, and there she’s called Your honour, and has a banquet from the merchant’s wife, whom she laughs at for her kindness.  And, as for my finical cit, she removes but to her country house, and there insults over the country gentlewoman that never comes up, who treats her with furmity and custard, and opens her dear bottle of mirabilis beside, for a gill-glass of it at parting.

Arte. At last, I see, we shall leave Melantha where we found her; for, by your description of the town and country, they are become more dreadful to her than the court, where she was affronted.  But you forget we are to wait on the princess Amalthea.  Come, Doralice.

Dor. Farewell, Melantha.

Mel. Adieu, my dear.

Arte. You are out of charity with her, and therefore I shall not give your service.

Mel. Do not omit it, I beseech you; for I have such a tendre for the court, that I love it even from the drawing-room to the lobby, and can never be rebutee by any usage.  But hark you, my dears; one thing I had forgot, of great concernment.

Dor. Quickly then, we are in haste.

Mel. Do not call it my service, that’s too vulgar; but do my baise mains to the princess Amalthea; that is spirituelle!

Dor. To do you service, then, we will prendre the carosse to court, and do your baise mains to the princess Amalthea, in your phrase spirituelle. [Exeunt ARTEMIS and DORALICE.

  Enter PHILOTIS, with a paper in her hand.

Mel. O, are you there, minion?  And, well, are not you a most precious damsel, to retard all my visits for want of language, when you know you are paid so well for furnishing me with new words for my daily conversation?  Let me die, if I have not run the risque already to speak like one of the vulgar, and if I have one phrase left in all my store, that is not thread-bare et use, and fit for nothing but to be thrown to peasants.

Phil. Indeed, Madam, I have been very diligent in my vocation; but you have so drained all the French plays and romances, that they are not able to supply you with words for your daily expence.

Mel. Drained?  What a word’s there! Epuisee, you sot you.  Come, produce your morning’s work.

Phil. ’Tis here, madam. [Shows the paper.

Mel. O, my Venus! fourteen or fifteen words to serve me a whole day!  Let me die, at this rate I cannot last till night.  Come, read your works:  Twenty to one, half of them will not pass muster neither.