University of Virginia Library

Young ladies all, pray take example
From this, (by no means single sample,)
Of how much pleasanter 'tis dressing,
To constitute a ball-room's blessing;
Taking from every curl the papers,
In sight of half a dozen tapers;
Giving your beauty between whiles
Those sweet anticipation smiles,
By which the bosoms of five hundred,
Ere morn, shall of their hearts be plunder'd,—
Than sitting up without a light,
'Twixt twelve and one o'clock at night;
Your way around your chamber stealing,
O'er drawers and trunks, and toilets reeling;

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All trembling, fearing, freezing, hoping,
In preparations for eloping!
I've known the thing gone through by dozens;
It happened to my four first cousins.