“ ‘Not at all, my dear. I took great pains to demonstrate to him, that we were all alike, and that we acted upon the same principles: but he is not of this opinion. He establishes an infinity of distinctions, which, I think, exist nowhere but in his imagination. He has formed to himself, I can’t tell what ideal creature, a chimaera of a woman, a nonentity in a coif.’

“ ‘Madam,’ answered Marsupha, ‘I know Amisadar. He is a lad of good sense, and has been very conversant with the sex. If he has told you that there were such⁠—’

“ ‘Oh! whether there are such or not,’ interrupted Fannia, ‘I could never conform to their customs.’

“ ‘I believe it,’ said Marsupha: ‘and accordingly you have chosen another sort of conduct more suitable to your birth and merit. Those silly creatures are to be abandoned to philosophers: they would never be look’d on at court.”