MARGARET GODOLPHIN, lovely as she was modest,-delicate in figure, with soft brown hair, regular features, and a winning expression. These ladies literally blazed with gems. Margaret appeared in a dress covered with stars of splendid diamonds, wearing three hundred pounds worth of laces and silks, and jewels of the value of twenty thousand pounds, which had been lent to her by various friends. Although in such illustrious com- pany, her beauty and magnificence drew a great deal of admiring notice upon her, but her thoughts were far away ; she could not take part in the trifling conversation and flirtations which were buzzing around her, and amidst all the pomp and gaiety, she adopted an innocent device, to avoid the compli- ments and adulation offered to her, which proved that she had not lived at Court without having her inven- tive faculties sharpened. While off the stage, in the " tiring-room," where " several ladies, her com- panions, were railing with the gallants triflingly enough till they were called to re-enter, she, under pretence of conning her next part, was settled in a corner, reading a book of devotion, without at all concerning herself or mingling with the company, as if she had no farther part to act, who was the prin- cipal person of the comedy." Seven days after,--on the 22nd of December,- - the masque was repeated ; and when, on this latter occasion, the performance was over, Margaret dis- covered, to her dismay, that an ornament which had 34
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