“Faith, a man might do worse than win so much beauty and wealth. But the creature is arrogant, and calls me ‘child;’ and half the peerage is after her. But we’ll have our jest with the city scrub, Ralph; not because I bear him malice, but because I hate his wife. And we’ll have our masquerading some time after midnight; if you can borrow a little finery.”
Mr. Dubbin was released from his lady’s sotto voce lecture at this instant, and Lord Rochester continued his communication in a whisper, the Honourable Jeremiah assenting with nods and chucklings, while Masaroon whistled for a fresh tankard, and plied the honest merchant with a glass which he never allowed to be empty.
The taste for masquerading was a fashion of the time, as much as combing a periwig, or flirting a fan. While Rochester was planning a trick upon the citizen, Lady Fareham was whispering to De Malfort under cover of the fiddles, which were playing an Italian pazzemano, an air beloved by Henrietta of Orleans, who danced to that music with her royal brother-in-law, in one of the sumptuous ballets at St. Cloud.
“Why should they be disappointed of their ghost,” said Hyacinth, “when it would be so easy for me to dress up as the nun and scare them all? This white satin gown of mine, with a few yards of white lawn arranged on my head and shoulders——”
“Ah, but you have not the lawn at hand to-night, or your woman to arrange your head,” interjected De Malfort quickly. “It would be a capital joke; but it must be for another occasion and choicer company. The rabble you have to-night is not worth it. Besides, there is Rochester, who is past-master in disguises, and would smoke you at a glance. Let me arrange it some night before the end of the summer—when there is a waning moon. It were a pity the thing were done ill.”
“Will you really plan a party for me, and let me appear to them on the stroke of one, with my face whitened? I have as slender a shape as most women.”
“There is no such sylph in London.”
“And I can make myself look ethereal. Will you draw the nun’s habit for me? and I will give your picture to Lewin to copy.”
“I will do more. I will get you a real habit.”
“But there are no nuns so white as the ghost.”