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table, as best pleases your fancy, without ceremony. If you hear any sound without, 'tis but the rolling of forty fathom water over-head; and nothing can intrude on our merriment, but a whale, or a mermaid, or a dolphin.

Walt. This same sea-nymph must have an ingenious art of cultivating roses in the bottom of the ocean.

Liv. It must be a perfect contrivance indeed that escapes the correct taste of Mr. Walter Baurchel. Fruit and ices perhaps may likewise be an incongruity: shall I order them away, and feast you on salt water and limpits?

Bar. Aye, pickle him up with brine in a corner by himself, for he has a secret sympathy with every thing uncherishing and pungent.

Liv. Do me the honour to take your places. I can pretty well divine which of the ladies will be your charge, gentle Baron.—But how is this? The Countess and you exchange strange looks, methinks, as if you did not know one another.

Bar. Some people exchange strange looks, fair Livia, from the opposite cause.

Liv. I don't comprehend you: should you have preferred being in masks? That indeed would have been a less common amusement.

Bar. By no means, Madam; the Countess and I meeting one another unmasked is a very uncommon one.

Countess. You know best, Baron, as far as you