As during the course of these lucubrations I have been extremely circumstantial in the reports I have made, the reader has a right to be surprised that I omitted the discourse between Deidamia and Eutracia; – I shall therefore, according to my promise, relate my motive for so doing, and flatter myself it is such as will render me perfectly excuseable in this point.

Much about the time of the adventure related in the two preceding chapters, I happen'd to be witness of a conversation, which though between different persons, and on a very different occasion, was still on the subject of marriage, the authority of a husband, and the submission expected from a wife; so seem'd to me to have a certain sameness in it which I thought would be rather tiresome than agreeable to the ear, and for that reason left out the former, and made choice of the latter, as of the two the most interesting.

Two sisters, whose characters I present to the public under the names of Flavia and Celemena, have both of them a tolerable share of beauty, but no other qualification, either natural or acquired, that could entitle them to the hope of an elevated station; – yet, by the benevolent aspect of their happy planets, are they become the brides of Alcandor and Thelamont, persons distinguish'd in the world by their birth and fortune, and still more so by the greatness of their merit.

These nuptials, so astonishing to the town, and which happen'd soon after one another, gave me a curiosity to discover, by the help of my Invisibility, in what fashion the ladies would behave themselves in a sphere of life so altogether new to them, and so little expected, even in their vainest wishes, ever to arrive at.

Flavia was the eldest, and it was to her I made my first visit; – she was in her dressing room, sitting at her toylet, with her waiting-maid behind her, giving the finishing stroke to her head tyre.