Racine: Phaedra

SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER 407
!n a letter from the two Miss Rickets of Crooked Lane.
Pray how do you Hke this head, Mr. Hastings?
Hastings. Extremely elegant and degagee, upon my word,
madam. Your friseur is a Frenchman, I suppose?
Mrs. Hardcastle. I protest, I dressed it myself from a print
in the " Ladies' Memorandum-book " for the last year.
Hastings. Indeed! Such a head in a side-box, at the Playhouse,
would draw as many gazers as my Lady Mayoress
at a City Ball.
Mrs. Hardcastle. I vow, since inoculation began, there is no
such thing to be seen as a plain woman ; so one must dress
a little particular or one may escape in the crowd.
Hastings. But that can never be your case, madam, in any
dress [Bowing.
Mrs. Hardcastle. Yet, what signifies my dressing when I have
such a piece of antiquity by my side as Mr. Hardcastle : all
I can say will never argue down a single button from his
clothes. I have often wanted him to throw off his great
flaxen wig, and where he was bald, to plaster it
my Lord Pately, with powder.
over like
Hastings. You are right, madam ; for, as among the ladies
there are none ugly, so among the men there are none old.
Mrs. Hardcastle. But what do you think his answer was?
Why, with his usual Gothic vivacity, he said I only wanted
him to throw off his wig to convert it into a tcte for my
own wearmg
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 Neville there, in a polite circle,
would be considered as a child, as a mere maker of
samplers.
Mrs. Hardcastle. And yet my niece thinks herself as much
a woman, and is as fond of jewels as the oldest of us all.