The next evening we were all in a little gentle flutter at the idea
of the gaiety before us. Miss Matty went up to dress betimes, and
hurried me until I was ready, when we found we had an hour-and-a-
half to wait before the "doors opened at seven precisely." And we
had only twenty yards to go! However, as Miss Matty said, it would
not do to get too much absorbed in anything, and forget the time;
so she thought we had better sit quietly, without lighting the
candles, till five minutes to seven. So Miss Matty dozed, and I
knitted.
At length we set off; and at the door under the carriage-way at the
"George," we met Mrs Forrester and Miss Pole: the latter was
discussing the subject of the evening with more vehemence than
ever, and throwing X's and B's at our heads like hailstones. She
had even copied one or two of the "receipts"--as she called them--
for the different tricks, on backs of letters, ready to explain and
to detect Signor Brunoni's arts.
We went into the cloak-room adjoining the Assembly Room; Miss Matty
gave a sigh or two to her departed youth, and the remembrance of
the last time she had been there, as she adjusted her pretty new
cap before the strange, quaint old mirror in the cloak-room. The
Assembly Room had been added to the inn, about a hundred years
before, by the different county families, who met together there
once a month during the winter to dance and play at cards.
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