"I wish to Heaven you had not been at this!" cries Booth. "Nay, you will wish so yourself if you tell me truth.--What have I said? do I-- can I suspect you of not speaking truth? Since you are ignorant then I will inform you: the man you have conversed with was no other than Lord----." "And is that the reason," said she, "you wish I had not been there?" "And is not that reason," answered he, "sufficient? Is he not the last man upon earth with whom I would have you converse?" "So you really wish then that I had not been at the masquerade?" "I do," cried he, "from my soul." "So may I ever be able," cried she, "to indulge you in every wish as in this.--I was not there." "Do not trifle, Amelia," cried he; "you would not jest with me if you knew the situation of my mind." "Indeed I do not jest with you," said she. "Upon my honour I was not there. Forgive me this first deceit I ever practised, and indeed it shall be the last; for I have paid severely for this by the uneasiness it hath given me." She then revealed to him the whole secret, which was thus: I think it hath been already mentioned in some part of this history that Amelia and Mrs. Atkinson were exactly of the same make and stature, and that there was likewise a very near resemblance between their voices. When Mrs. Atkinson, therefore, found that Amelia was so extremely averse to the masquerade, she proposed to go thither in her stead, and to pass upon Booth for his own wife. This was afterwards very easily executed; for, when they left Booth's lodgings, Amelia, who went last to her chair, ran back to fetch her masque, as she pretended, which she had purposely left behind. She then whipt off her domino, and threw it over Mrs. Atkinson, who stood ready to receive it, and ran immediately downstairs, and, stepping into Amelia's chair, proceeded with the rest to the masquerade. As her stature exactly suited that of Amelia, she had very little difficulty to carry on the imposition; for, besides the natural resemblance of their voices, and the opportunity of speaking in a feigned one, she had scarce an intercourse of six words with Booth during the whole time; for the moment they got into the croud she took the first opportunity of slipping from him. And he, as the reader may remember, being seized by other women, and concluding his wife to be safe with Mrs. James, was very well satisfied, till the colonel set him upon the search, as we have seen before. Mrs. Atkinson, the moment she came home, ran upstairs to the nursery, where she found Amelia, and told her in haste that she might very easily carry on the deceit with her husband; for that she might tell him what she pleased to invent, as they had not been a minute together during the whole evening.