, - I - I vow, I can't bear
the Apprehension of it. - No, it must not be. - At least every other Method
shall be tried. Can you get rid of your Engagements and dine here to-day? Your
Lordship will have an Opportunity of seeing a little more of Miss Western. - I
promise you we have no time to lose. Here will be no body but Lady Betty, and
Miss Eagle, and Colonel Hampsted, and Tom Edwards, they will all go soon - and I
shall be at home to no body. Then your Lordship may be a little more explicit.
Nay, I will contrive some Method to convince you of her Attachment to this
Fellow.« My Lord made proper Compliments, accepted the Invitation, and then they
parted to dress, it being now past three in the Morning, or to reckon by the old
Style, in the Afternoon.
 

                                  Chapter III

                 A further Explanation of the foregoing Design.
 
Tho' the Reader may have long since concluded Lady Bellaston to be a Member (and
no inconsiderable one) of the Great World, she was in reality a very
considerable Member of the Little World; by which Appellation was distinguished
a very worthy and honourable Society which not long since flourished in this
Kingdom.
    Among other good Principles upon which this Society was founded, there was
one very remarkable; for as it was a Rule of an honourable Club of Heroes, who
assembled at the close of the late War, that all the Members should every Day
fight once at least; so 'twas in this, that every Member should, within the
twenty-four Hours, tell at least one merry Fib, which was to be propagated by
all the Brethren and Sisterhood.
    Many idle Stories were told about this Society, which from a certain Quality
may be perhaps not unjustly supposed to have come from the Society themselves.
As, that the Devil was the President, and that he sat in Person in an elbow
Chair at the upper End of the Table; but upon very strict Enquiry, I find there
is not the least Truth in any of those Tales, and that the Assembly consisted in
reality of a Set of very good sort of People, and the Fibs which they propagated
were of a harmless Kind, and tended only to produce Mirth and good Humour.
    Edwards was likewise a Member of this comical Society. To him therefore Lady
Bellaston applied as a proper Instrument for her Purpose, and furnished him with
a Fib, which he was to vent whenever the Lady gave him her Cue; and this was not
to be
