Of one subject, Lucy, I particularly owe you

some account.

Miss Grandison, in her lively way, (and lively she was, notwithstanding her trial so lately over) led me into talking of the detested masquerade. She put me upon recollecting the giddy scene, which those dreadfully interesting ones that fol lowed it had made me wish to blot out of my me. mory.

I spared you at the time, Harriet,' said she. 'I asked you no questions about the masquerade. when you flew to us first, poor frighted bird! with all your gay plumage about you.'

I coloured a deep crimson, I believe. What were Sir Charles's first thoughts of me, Lucy, in that fantastic, that hated dress? The simile of the bird too, was his, you know; and Charlotte looked very archly.

My dear Miss Grandison, spare me still. Let me forget, that ever I presumptuously ventured into such a scene of folly.'

'Do not call it by harsh names, Miss Byron,' said Sir Charles. We are too much obliged to it.' Can I, Sir Charles, call it by too harsh a name, when I think, how fatal, in numberless ways, the event might have proved! But I do not speak only with reference to that.-Don't think, my dear Miss Grandison, that my dislike to myself, and to this foolish diversion, springs altogether from what befel me. I had on the spot the same contempts, the same disdain of myself, the same dislike of all those who seemed capable of joy on the light, the foolish occasion.'

She

My good Charlotte,' said Sir Charles smiling, is less timorous than her younger sister. might be persuaded, I fancy, to venture

Under your conduct, Sir Charles. You know,

Lady L. and I, who have not yet had an opportu nity of this sort, were trying to engage you against the next subscription ball.'

Indeed,' said Lady L. our Harriet's distress has led me into reflections I never made before on this kind of diversion; and I fancy her account of it will perfectly satisfy my curiosity.'

it.

SIR CH. 'Proceed, good Miss Byron. I am as curious as your sisters, to hear what you say of The scene was quite new to you. You probably expected entertainment from it. Forget for a while the accidental consequences, and tell us how you were at the time amused,'

Amused, Sir Charles!-Indeed I had no opinion of the diversion, even before I went. I knew I should despise it. I knew I should often wish myself at home before the evening were over. And so indeed I did; I whispered my cousin Reeves more than once, "O madam! this is sad, this is intolerable stuff! This place is one great Bedlam! Good Heaven! Could there be in this one town so many creatures devoid of reason, as are here got together? I hope we are all here."

'Yet you see,' said Miss Grandison, however Lady L. is, or seems to be, instantaneously rêformed, there were two, who would gladly have been there: the more you may be sure, for its having been a diversion prohibited to us, at our first coming to town. Sir Charles lived long in the land of masquerades-O my dear! we used to please ourselves with hopes, that when he was permitted to come over to England, we should see golden days under his auspices.

SIR CH. (Smiling.) Will you accompany us to the next subscription-ball, Miss Byron?"

I, Sir Charles, should be inexcusable, if I thought-'

7

MISS GR. (Interrupting, and looking archly.) 'Not under our brother's conduct, Harriet?'

'Indeed, my dear Miss Grandison, had the diversion not been prohibited, had you once seen the wild, the senseless confusion, you would think just as I do and you will have one stronger reason against countenancing it by your presence; for who, at this rate, shall make the stand of virtue and decorum, if such ladies as Miss Grandison and Lady L. do not? But I speak of the common masquerades, which, I believe, are more disorderly. I was disgusted at the freedoms taken with me, though but the common freedoms of the place, by persons who singled me from the throng, hurried me round the rooms, and engaged me in fifty idle conversations; and to whom, by the pri vilege of the place, I was obliged to be bold, pert, saucy, and to aim at repartee and smartness; the current wit of that witless place. They once got me into a country dance. No prude could come, or if she came, could be a prude there.'

SIR CH. "Were you not pleased, Miss Byron, with the first coup-d'œil of that gay apartment?

A momentary pleasure: but when I came to reflect, the bright light, striking on my tinsel dress, made me seem to myself the more conspicuous fool. Let me be kept in countenance as I might, by scores of still more ridiculous figures, "What," thought I," are other people's follies to me? Am I to make an appearance that shall want the coun tenance of the vainest, if not the silliest, part of the creation? What would my good grandfather have thought, could he have seen his Harriet, the girl," (excuse me; they were my thoughts at the time)" whose mind he took pains to form and enlarge, mingling in a habit so preposterously rich and gaudy, with a crowd of satyrs, harlequins, sca

ramouches, fauns, and dryads; nay, of witches and devils!" The graver habits striving which should most disgrace the characters they assumed, and every one endeavouring to be thought the direct contrary of what he or she appeared to be?' MISS GR. Well then, the devils, at least, must have been charming creatures!'

LADY L. But, Sir Charles, might not a masquerade, if decorum were observed, and every one would support with wit and spirit the assumed character

MR. GR. Devils and all, Lady L.?

LADY L. It is contrary to decorum for such shocking characters to be assumed at all-But might it not, Sir Charles, so regulated, be a rational, and an almost instructive entertainment?'

SIR CH. You would scarcely be able, my dear sister, to collect eight or nine hundred people, all wits, and all observant of decorum. And if you could, does not the example reach down to those who are capable of taking only the bad and dangerous part of a diversion; which you may see, by every common newspaper, is become dreadfully general?'

MR. GR. 'Well, Sir Charles, and why should not the poor devils in low life divert themselves as well as their betters? For my part, I rejoice when I see advertised an eighteen-penny masquerade, for all the pretty 'prentice souls, who will that evening be Arcadian shepherdesses, goddesses, and queens.'

Miss GR. What low profligate scenes couldst thou expatiate upon, good man! if thou wert in proper company; I warrant those goddesses have not wanted an adorer in our cousin Everard.'

MR. GR. Dear Miss Charlotte, take care! I

M

protest, you begin to talk with the spite of an old maid.'

MISS GR.There, brother! Do you hear the wretch? Will not you, knight-errant like, defend the cause of a whole class of distressed damsels, with our good Yorkshire aunt at the head of them?' SIR CH. Those general prejudices and asper. sions, Charlotte, are indeed unjust and cruel. Yet I am for having every body marry.-Bachelors, cousin Everard, and maids, when long single, are looked upon as houses long empty, which nobody cares to take. As the house, in time, by long disuse, will be thought by the vulgar haunted by evil spirits, so will the others, by the many, be thought possessed by no good ones.'

The transition was, somehow, made from hence to the equitableness that ought to be in our judgments of one another. "We must in these cases,' said Sir Charles, throw merit in one scale, demerit in the other; and if the former weigh down the latter, we must in charity pronounce to the person's advantage. So it is humbly hoped we shall finally be judged ourselves: for who is faultless?

"Yet,' said he, for my own part, that I may not be wanting to prudence, I have sometimes, where the merit is not very striking, allowed persons, at first acquaintance, a short lease only in my good opinion; some for three, some for six, some for nine, others for twelve months, renewable or not, as they answer expectation. And by this means I leave it to every one to make his own character with me; I preserve my charity, and my complacency; and enter directly, with frankness, into conversation with him; and generally continue that freedom to the end of the respective person's lease.'