They had kept together for
some time, when Louisa, meeting an old acquaintance of hers,
very cordially gives her companion the drop, and leaves her
under the protection of her boy's habit, which was not much,
and of her discretion, which was, it seems, still less.
Emily, finding herself deserted, sauntered thoughtless about
a-while, and, as much for coolness and air as anything else,
at length pull'd off her mask and went to the sideboard;
where, eyed and mark'd out by a gentleman in a very handsome
domino, she was accosted by, and fell into chat with him.
The domino, after a little discourse, in which Emily doubt-
less distinguish'd her good nature and easiness more than her
wit, began to make violent love to her, and drawing her in-
sensibly to some benches at the lower end of the masquerade
room, for her to sit by him, where he squeez'd her hands,
pinch'd her cheeks, prais'd and played with her fine hair,
admired her complexion, and all in a style of courtship dash'd
with a certain oddity, that not comprehending the mystery of,
poor Emily attributed to his falling in with the humour of her
disguise; and being naturally not the cruellest of her profes-
sion, began to incline to a parley on those essentials. But
here was the stress of the joke: he took her really for what
she appear'd to be, a smock-fac'd boy; and she, forgetting her
dress, and of course ranging quite wide of his ideas, took all
those addresses to be paid to herself as a woman, which she
precisely owed to his not thinking her one.
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