irits; my husband insisted that it was not, and you know that
one loves to oblige one's friends, comply with one's doctor, and
contradict one's husband; and besides I was ambitious to be thought _du
bon ton_.

_Mercury_.--_Bon ton_! what is that, madam? Pray define it.

_Mrs. Modish_.--Oh sir, excuse me, it is one of the privileges of the
_bon ton_ never to define, or be defined. It is the child and the parent
of jargon. It is--I can never tell you what it is: but I will try to
tell you what it is not. In conversation it is not wit; in manners it is
not politeness; in behaviour it is not address; but it is a little like
them all. It can only belong to people of a certain rank, who live in a
certain manner, with certain persons, who have not certain virtues, and
who have certain vices, and who inhabit a certain part of the town. Like
a place by courtesy, it gets a higher rank than the person can claim, but
which those who have a legal title to precedency dare not dispute, for
fear of being thought not to understand the rules of politeness. Now,
sir, I have told you as much as I know of it, though I have admired and
aimed at it all my life.

_Mercury_.--Then, madam, you have wasted your time, faded your beauty,
and destroyed your health, for the laudable purposes of contradicting
your husband, and being this something and this nothing called the _bon
ton_.

_Mrs. Modish_.--What would you have had me do?

_Mercury_.--I will follow your mode of instructing. I will tell you what
I would not have had you do. I would not have had you sacrifice your
time, your reason, and your duties, to fashion and folly. I would not
have had you neglect your husband's happiness and your children's
education.

_Mrs. Modish_.--As to the education of my daughters, I spared no expense;
they had a dancing-master, music-master, and drawing-mister, and a French
governess to teach them behaviour and the French language.

_Mercury_.--So their religion, sentiments, and manners were to be learnt
from a dancing-master, music-master, and a chambermaid! Perhaps they
might prepare them to catch the _bon ton_. Your daughters must have been
so educated as to fit them to be wives without conjugal affection, and
mothers without maternal care. I am sorry for the sort of life they are
commencing, and for that which you have just concluded. Minos is a sour
old gentleman, without the least smattering of the _bon ton_, and I am in
a fright for