HASTINGS. Intolerable! At your age you may wear what you please, and
it must become you.

MRS. HARDCASTLE. Pray, Mr. Hastings, what do you take to be the most
fashionable age about town?

HASTINGS. Some time ago, forty was all the mode; but I'm told the
ladies intend to bring up fifty for the ensuing winter.

MRS. HARDCASTLE. Seriously. Then I shall be too young for the
fashion.

HASTINGS. No lady begins now to put on jewels till she's past forty.
For instance, Miss there, in a polite circle, would be considered as a
child, as a mere maker of samplers.

MRS. HARDCASTLE. And yet Mrs. Niece thinks herself as much a woman,
and is as fond of jewels, as the oldest of us all.

HASTINGS. Your niece, is she? And that young gentleman, a brother of
yours, I should presume?

MRS. HARDCASTLE. My son, sir. They are contracted to each other.
Observe their little sports. They fall in and out ten times a day, as
if they were man and wife already. (To them.) Well, Tony, child, what
soft things are you saying to your cousin Constance this evening?

TONY. I have been saying no soft things; but that it's very hard to be
followed about so. Ecod! I've not a place in the house now that's left
to myself, but the stable.