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You will allow all
this?"

"Yes, to be sure, as you state it, all this sounds very well; but
still they are so very different. I cannot look upon them at all
in the same light, nor think the same duties belong to them."

"In one respect, there certainly is a difference. In marriage,
the man is supposed to provide for the support of the woman, the
woman to make the home agreeable to the man; he is to purvey, and
she is to smile. But in dancing, their duties are exactly changed;
the agreeableness, the compliance are expected from him, while she
furnishes the fan and the lavender water. That, I suppose, was the
difference of duties which struck you, as rendering the conditions
incapable of comparison."

"No, indeed, I never thought of that."

"Then I am quite at a loss. One thing, however, I must observe.
This disposition on your side is rather alarming. You totally
disallow any similarity in the obligations; and may I not thence
infer that your notions of the duties of the dancing state are not
so strict as your partner might wish? Have I not reason to fear
that if the gentleman who spoke to you just now were to return, or
if any other gentleman were to address you, there would be nothing
to restrain you from conversing with him as long as you chose?"

"Mr. Thorpe is such a very particular friend of my brother's, that
if he talks to me, I must talk to him again; but there are hardly
three young men in the room besides him that I have any acquaintance
with."

"And is that to be my only security? Alas, alas!"

"Nay, I am sure you cannot have a better; for if I do not know
anybody, it is impossible for me to talk to them; and, besides, I
do not want to talk to anybody."

"Now you have given me a security worth having; and I shall proceed
with courage. Do you find Bath as agreeable as when I had the
honour of making the inquiry before?"

"Yes, quite -- more so, indeed."

"More so! Take care, or you will forget to be tired of it at the
proper time. You ought to be tired at the end of six weeks."

"I do not think I should be tired, if I were to stay here six
months."

"Bath, compared with London, has little variety, and so everybody
finds out every year. 'For six weeks, I allow Bath is pleasant
enough; but beyond that, it is the most tiresome place in the
world.' You would be told so by people of all descriptions, who
come regularly every winter, lengthen their six weeks into ten
or twelve, and go away at last because they can afford to stay no
longer."

"Well, other people must judge for themselves, and those who go
to London may think nothing of Bath. But I, who live in a small
retired village in the country, can never find greater sameness in
such a place as this than in my own home; for here are a variety of
amusements, a variety of things to be seen and done all day long,
which I can know nothing of there."

"You are not fond of the country."

"Yes, I am.

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