The Masqueraders June 2021 Group Read *Spoilers Here!*

[Gretchen]

Another madcap adventure by Ms. Heyer what great fun! It had every kind of character in it. The hero ,the damsel in distress etc.
The characters were great and it was fun !
I liked that there was more what should I say more emotion or maybe affection shown between characters in this Georgian story.
All in all i really liked it!

[Elizabeth]

Rather late to the fair, but this is something I've been meaning to share all last month! Prudence telling her Papa: "You are not Murray of Broughton" reminded me of this footnote (!) in John Gibson Lockhart's Life of Scott, describing an incident in the home of Walter Scott's father, who like his son was a lawyer:

Mrs Scott's [i.e. Walter's mother] curiosity was strongly excited one autumn by the regular appearance, at a certain hour every evening, of a sedan chair, to deposit a person carefully muffled up in a mantle, who was immediately ushered into her husband's private room, and commonly remained with him there until long after the usual bed-time of this orderly family. Mr Scott answered her repeated inquiries with a vagueness which irritated the lady's feelings more and more; until, at last, she could bear the thing no longer; but one evening, just as she heard the bell ring as for the stranger's chair to carry him off, she made her appearance within the forbidden parlour with a salver in her hand, observing, that she thought the gentlemen had sat so long, they would be the better of a dish of tea, and had ventured accordingly to bring some for their acceptance. The stranger, a person of distinguished appearance, and richly dressed, bowed to the lady, and accepted a cup; but her husband knit his brows, and refused very coldly to partake the refreshment. A moment afterwards the visitor withdrew –and Mr Scott lifting up the window-sash, took the cup, which he had left empty on the table, and tossed it out upon the pavement. The lady exclaimed for her china, but was put to silence by her husband's saying, "I can forgive your little curiosity, madam, but you must pay the penalty. I may admit into my house, on a piece of business, persons wholly unworthy to be treated as guests by my wife. Neither lip of me nor of mine comes after Mr Murray of Broughton’s." This was the unhappy man who, after attending Prince Charles Stuart as his secretary throughout the greater part of his expedition, condescended to redeem his own life and fortune by bearing evidence against the noblest of his late master's adherents, when

"Pitied by gentle hearts Kilmarnock died –
The brave, Balmerino, were on thy side."

When confronted with Sir John Douglas of Kelhead (ancestor of the Marquess of Queensberry), before the Privy Council in St James's, the, prisoner was asked, "Do you know this witness?" "Not I," answered Douglas; "I once knew a person who bore the designation of Murray of Broughton – but that was a gentleman and a man of honour, and one that could hold up his head!"

J. G. Lockhart, The Life of Scott, 1848, quoted from a machine-readable transcription created by the University of Glasgow, https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/Media_541...

[Barb in Maryland]

Elizabeth wrote: "Rather late to the fair, but this is something I've been meaning to share all last month! Prudence telling her Papa: "You are not Murray of Broughton" reminded me of this footnote (!) in John Gibso..."

Oh, thank you for that wonderful piece of information. I've usually skimmed over that remark, deeming it to be just another bit of GH's knowledge base. One that I was never curious enough to look into.

[Gretchen]

That was cool! I didnt know that !
Thank you!