Lady Bell had murmured loudly at the moroseness of poor old Squire Trevor, when she, as a silly child, had tried his patience; should she not be a fool indeed to put herself, as a woman, in the power of another master? And this would not be a fine gentleman who might neglect and be unfaithful to her, and still be suave and tolerant to her faults, having consideration of his own grievous sins. This would be another sour and savage man, rendered a hundred times more formidable in his prime by the weapons which her love and his would put into his hands to pierce both their hearts. Yet she was old and wise enough to know that infinitely worse might befall her. What a poor chance there was for women of her class and culture in life! Humbler women might be more stolid, less alive to their injuries, abler to keep their own. These were sad reflections to qualify the noisy nonsense of a masquerade. Lady Bell was very sorry for herself, and soon grew weary of the amusement. She discovered that it was rarely dependent on the lively cleverness which could enter into the spirit of the game and play it out well. The ball was kept up rather by the impudence and effrontery which could break through every restraint, and could administer and endorse, without flinching, the rudest rebuffs. The Troubadours, King Alfreds, and Friar Tucks, the Abbesses, Beggar Girls, and Sapphos, aimed more frequently at outraging than at expressing their _rôles_. It was regarded as the best joke when the Troubadour flung away his guitar, King Alfred hobnobbed with Captain Macheath, and Friar Tuck swam, sauntered, and sniffed at a vinaigrette. In like manner fair applause was won by the Abbess entering into an open flirtation with a soldier of fortune; by the Beggar Girl complaining peevishly of the liberties taken by a courtier, who had trodden on her beggar’s trappings; and by Sappho, while oppressed with a “snivelling cold,” and beset by a most pronounced Devonshire dialect, indulging in entirely prosaic and matter-of-fact remarks. No doubt, the abuse of the characters adopted, was a great deal more easily attained than the use would have been, and, making allowance for the average limits of human intellect, the people were wise in their generation. But the effect was disappointing to an enthusiastic young Lady Bell. The affair did not stop at a brilliant burlesque—it went as far as an earlier screaming farce. Lady Bell began to grow timid and nervous as the mirth grew faster and more furious. She clung to the support of any acquaintance such as Mrs. Lascelles—who, the wish being father to the thought, possibly, personated the widow loved by Sir Roger de Coverley—in passing through the heaving, changing groups.