But dear Millamant, why were you so long?

MILLAMANT. Long! Lord, have I not made violent haste? I have ask'd every living Thing I met for you; I have enquir'd after you, as after a new Fashion.

WITWOUD. Madam, truce with your Similitudes –– No, you met her Husband and did not ask him for her.

MIRABELL. By your leave Witwoud, that were like enquiring after an old Fashion, to ask a Husband for his Wife.

WITWOUD. Hum, a hit, a hit, a palpable hit, I confess it.

MRS. FAINALL. You were dress'd before I came abroad.

MILLAMANT. Ay, that's true –– O but then I had –– Mincing what had I? Why was I so long?

MINCING. O Mem, your Laship staid to peruse a Pecquet of Letters.

MILLAMANT. O ay, Letters –– I had Letters –– I am persecuted with Letters – I hate Letters – No Body knows how to write Letters; and yet one has 'em, one does not know why –– They serve one to pin up one's Hair.

WITWOUD. Is that the way? Pray Madam, do you pin up your Hair with all your Letters? I find I must keep Copies.

MILLAMANT. Only with those in Verse, Mr. Witwoud. I never pin up my Hair with Prose. I fancy ones Hair wou'd not curl if it were pinn'd up with Prose. I think I try'd once Mincing.

MINCING. O Mem, I shall never forget it.

MILLAMANT. Ay, poor Mincing tift and tift all the morning.

MINCING. 'Till I had the Cremp in my Fingers I'll vow Mem. And all to no purpose. But when your Laship pins it up with Poetry, it sits so pleasant the next Day as any Thing, and is so pure and so crips.

WITWOUD. Indeed, so crips?

MINCING. You're such a Critick, Mr. Witwoud.

MILLAMANT. Mirabell, Did not you take Exceptions last Night? O ay, and went away –– Now I think on't I'm angry –– No, now I think on't I'm pleas'd –– For I believe I gave you some Pain.

MIRABELL. Do's that please you?

MILLAMANT. Infinitely; I love to give Pain.

MIRABELL. You wou'd affect a Cruelty which is not in your Nature; your true Vanity is in the power of pleasing.

MILLAMANT. O I ask your Pardon for that –– One's Cruelty is one's Power, and when one parts with one's Cruelty, one parts with one's Power; and when one has parted with that, I fancy one's Old and Ugly.

MIRABELL. Ay, ay, suffer your Cruelty to ruin the object of your Power, to destroy your Lover –– And then how vain how lost a Thing you'll be! Nay, 'tis true: You are no longer handsome when you've lost your Lover; your Beauty dies upon the Instant: For Beauty is the Lover's Gift; 'tis he bestows your Charms – Your Glass is all a Cheat. The Ugly and the Old, whom the Looking-glass mortifies, yet after Commendation can be flatter'd by it, and discover Beauties in it: For that reflects our Praises, rather than your Face.

MILLAMANT.