Devereux Book II by Edward Bulwer-lytton

"WELL, Tarleton," said I, looking round that mart of millinery and love-making, which, so celebrated in the reign of Charles II., still preserved the shadow of its old renown in that of Anne, -- "well, here we are upon the classical ground so often commemorated in the comedies which our chaste grandmothers thronged to see. Here we can make appointments, while we profess to buy gloves, and should our mistress tarry too long, beguile our impatience by a flirtation with her milliner. Is there not a breathing air of gayety about the place? -- does it not still smack of the Ethereges and Sedleys?"

"Right," said Tarleton, leaning over a counter and amorously eying the pretty coquette to whom it belonged; while, with the coxcombry then in fashion, he sprinkled the long curls that touched his shoulders with a fragrant shower from a bottle of jessamine water upon the counter, -- "right; saw you ever such an eye? Have you snuff of the true scent, my beauty -- foh! this is for the nostril of a Welsh parson -- choleric and hot, my beauty, -- pulverized horse-radish, -- why, it would make a nose of the coldest constitution imaginable sneeze like a washed school-boy on a Saturday night. -- Ah, this is better, my princess: there is some courtesy in this snuff; it flatters the brain like a poet's dedication. Right, Devereux, right, there is something infectious in the atmosphere; one catches good humour as easily as if it were cold. Shall we stroll on? -- /my/ Clelia is on the other side of the Exchange.