“. . . I am very weak to-day, but I can account for it
The day before yesterday there was a masquerade; in the course of conversation
some time before, I happened to wish to go to it. Lady
K. offered me two tickets for myself and Miss
Delane to accompany me. I refused them on account of the expense
of dressing properly. She then to obviate that objection lent me a black
domino. I was out of spirits, and thought of another excuse; but she proposed
to take me and Betty Delane to the houses of several
people of fashion who saw masques. We went to a great number, and were a
tolerable, nay, a much admired group. Lady K. went in a
domino with a smart cockade; Miss Moore dressed in the
habit of one of the females of the new discovered islands; Betty
D. as a forsaken shepherdess, and your sister
Mary in a black domino. As it was taken for granted
the stranger who had just arrived could not speak the language, I was to be her
interpreter, which afforded me an ample field for satire. I happened to be very
melancholy in the morning, as I am almost
| 190 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
