The truth of the fact you shall have very
faithfully. You are to understand, that the persons concerned in this
scene were, Lady Autumn, and Lady Springly:[365] Autumn is a person of
good breeding, formality, and a singular way practised in the last age;
and Lady Springly, a modern impertinent of our sex, who affects as
improper familiarity, as the other does distance. Lady Autumn knows to a
hair's-breadth where her place is in all assemblies and conversations;
but Springly neither gives nor takes place of anybody, but understands
the place to signify no more, than to have room enough to be at ease
wherever she comes. Thus while Autumn takes the whole of this life to
consist in understanding punctilio and decorum, Springly takes
everything to be becoming which contributes to her ease and
satisfaction. These heroines have married two brothers, both knights.
Springly is the spouse of the elder, who is a baronet; and Autumn, being
a rich widow, has taken the younger, and her purse endowed him with an
equal fortune and knighthood of the same order.
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