An additional excitement surrounded this Assembly because it was everywhere reported that the young gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_ would be present in force. This rumour was, indeed, likely to prove true, for the young gentlemen, already determined to discover Mr. Lovely's charmer, were confirmed in their resolve by a desire to reciprocate the Beau's lately implied confidence in a way more likely to gratify him than any other. The prospect of dancing with young Tom Chalkley of the Foot, Tony Clare, and Peter Wingfield, or Lieutenant Blewforth of the _Lively_ fluttered all the young ladies' hearts and very many of the old ones'. Moreover, there were the Honourable Mr. Harthe-Brusshe and Mr. Golightly, and above all, there was Mr. Charles Lovely who, if he were a poet, was also a man of the extremest fashion and finest taste, and so at once genteel and romantick. Altogether the postponed Assembly promised to be a great success. Miss Phyllida Courteen hoped that her dear Amor would make an exception for once, but Mr. Vernon declared he would by no means commit himself to such publick adoration of his fair; so she was forced to content herself with the prospect of teasing Miss Sukey Morton about the anonymous Valentine. She knew that her dear Morton would suspect Mr. Chalkley who, with the politeness for which the British Army has always been famous, had once recovered her dropped fan. This somewhat ordinary event had led Miss Morton to colour the whole world to the hue of a red coat. All the dearest confidences exchanged with her beloved Courteen referred to young Mr. Chalkley who was quite unconscious of the amount of room he occupied in Miss Morton's heart, and was used to regard women as musquets for the presenting of arms, but nothing more. The whole of Wednesday had been spent by the ladies of the Wells in refreshing their bodies with sleep and rouge alternately, and the sickle moon in the frore February sky looked pale and ghostly beside the sleek tapers that twinkled in every window pane and the ruddy flambeaux of the lackeys as they stamped up and down in waiting to escort their mistresses to the ball. Phyllida was not long in putting on her white muslin nightgown with flowered sack; and as her curls had neither to be subdued by Powder and Pomatum, nor frizzled to a mock vivacity by restorative Tongs, she sat in the bow-window of her bedchamber and stared at the young moon. The curtains were drawn back, but, even so, she could still see innumerable shepherds arming as many shepherdesses through the pattern and, as the fire-light flickered over them, they seemed, indeed, to be stepping a forgotten dance.