“Only to think of it, Tibbie!” she wrote.  “We are to have plays given by the officers, and weekly dancing assemblies, and darling dadda says I am to go to both; and all my gowns being monstrous nugging and frumpish, he told mommy to see that I had a new one, though where the money came from (for though I did every stitch myself, it cost a pretty penny—­no less than seventeen pounds and eight shillings, Tibbie!) I have puzzled not a little to fancy.  I fear me I cannot describe it justly to you, but I will do my endeavour.  ’T is a black velvet with pink satin sleeves and stomacher, and a pink satin petticoat, over which is a fall of white crape; the sides open in front, spotted all over with gray embroidery, and the edge of the coat and skirt trimmed with gray fur.  Oh, Tibbie, ’t is the most elegant and dashy robing that ever was!  Pray Heaven I don’t dirt it for it is to serve for the whole winter!  Peggy has three new frocks, and Margaret Shippen four, but mine is the prettiest, and by tight lacing (though no tighter than theirs) I make my waist an ell smaller than either.  In addition, I have a nabob of gray tabby silk trimmed with the same fur, which has such a sweet and modish air that I could cry at having to remove it but for what it would conceal.  I intend to ask Peggy if ’t would be citified and a la mode to keep it on for a little while after entering the box by the plea that the playhouse is cold.  The high mode now is to dress the hair enormous tall—­a good eight inches, Tibbie—­over a steel frame, powdered mighty white, and to stick a mouchet or two on the face.  It seems to me I cannot wait for the night, yet my teeth rattle and my hands tremble and I am all in a shake whenever I think of it; if I can but keep from being mute as a stock-fish, and gawkish, for I am all alive with fear that I shall be both, and shame us all!  Peggy has taught me the minuet glide and curtsey and languish, and I am to step it at the first Assembly with Captain Andre,—­ such a pretty, engaging fellow, Tibbie, who will never swing for want of tongue; and Lord Rawdon has bespoke my hand for the quadrille,—­a stern, frowning man, who frights me greatly, but ’t is a monstrous distinction I need scarce say to be asked by one who will some day be an earl, Tibbie—­and I dance the Sir Roger de Coverley with Sir Frederick Mobray, who is delightsome, too, by his rallying, performs most entrancingly on the flute, and is one of the best bowlers in the weekly cricket matches, but who is said to play very deep at Pharaoh in the club the officers have established; and to keep a great number of fighting cocks on which he wagers vast sums—­if rumour speaks true, as high as a hundred guineas on a single main, Tibbie—­at the cock-pit they have set up.  A great crowd assembled yesterday to see him and Major Tarleton ride their chargers from Sixth Street to the river on a bet, and he lost because a little girl toddled out from the sidewalk and he pulled up, while the major, who is a wonderful