of the company; and when the dancing began, a great lord', says she, 'I forget who they called him (but he was a very great lord or duke, I don't know which); took her out, and danced with her; but after a while, my lady on a sudden shut the drawing-room, and ran upstairs with her woman, Mrs Amy; and, though she did not stay long (for I suppose she had contrived it all beforehand), she came down dressed in the strangest figure that ever I saw in my life; but it was exceeding fine.'
Here she went on to describe the dress, as I have done already; but did it so exactly that I was surprised at the manner of her telling it; there was not a circumstance of it left out.
I was now under a new perplexity, for this young slut gave so complete an account of everything in the dress that my friend the Quaker coloured at it, and looked two or three times at me, to see if I did not do so too; for (as she told me afterwards) she immediately perceived it was the same dress that she had seen me have on, as I have said before. However, as she saw I took no notice of it, she kept her thoughts private to herself; and I did so too, as well as I could.
I put in two or three times, that she had a good memory, that could be so particular in every part of such a thing.
'Oh, madam!', says she, 'we that were servants stood by ourselves in a corner, but so as we could see more than some strangers; besides', says she, 'it was all our conversation for several days in the family, and what one did not observe another did.' 'Why', says I to her, 'this was no Persian dress; only, I suppose your lady was some French comedian, that is to say a stage Amazon, that put on a counterfeit dress to please the company, such as they used in the play of Tamerlane at Paris, or some such.'
'No, indeed, madam', says she, 'I assure you my lady was no actress; she was a fine modest lady, fit to be a princess; everybody said if she was a mistress, she was fit to be a mistress to none but the king; and they talked her up for the king as if it had really been so. Besides, madam', says she, 'my lady danced a Turkish dance; all the lords and gentry said it was so; and one of them swore he had seen it danced in Turkey himself, so that it could not come from the theatre at Paris; and then the name Roxana', says she, 'was a Turkish name.'
'Well', said I, 'but that was not your lady's name, I suppose?'
'No, no, madam', said she, 'I know that. I know my lady's name and family very well; Roxana was not her name, that's true, indeed.'
Here she run me aground again, for I durst not ask her what was Roxana's real name, lest she had really dealt with the devil, and had boldly given my own name in for answer; so that I was still more and more afraid that the girl had really gotten the secret somewhere or other; though I could not imagine neither how that could be.
In a word, I was sick of the discourse, and endeavoured many ways to put an end to it, but it was impossible; for the captain's wife, who called her sister, prompted her, and pressed her to tell it, most ignorantly thinking that it would be a pleasant tale to all of us.
Two or three times the Quaker put in, that this Lady Roxana had a good stock of assurance; and that it was likely, if she had been in Turkey, she had lived with, or been kept by, some great bashaw there. But still she would break in upon all such discourse, and fly out into the most extravagant praises of her mistress, the famed Roxana. I run her
