Read it through once

“Of the public amusements of the town, as I remember it at bonny fifteen,” she continues, “these were sober enough. Ten years before, clubs had flourished; and the heads of houses had met once a week at the _King’s Arms_ for the purpose of whist-playing; whilst the ladies, thus deserted by their liege lords, had established a meeting at each other’s mansions on club-nights, from which, by way of retaliation, the whole male sex was banished,” save one. “At the time, however, of which I speak, these clubs had passed away; and the public diversions were limited to an annual visit from a respectable company of actors, the theatre being, as is usual in country places, very well conducted and exceedingly ill attended; to biennial concerts, equally good in their kind, and rather better patronised; and to almost weekly incursions from itinerant lecturers on all the arts and sciences, and from prodigies of every kind, whether three-year-old fiddlers or learned dogs. There were also balls in their spacious and commodious townhall, which seemed as much built for the purposes of dancing as that of trying criminals. Public balls there were in abundance; but at the time of which I speak they were of less advantage to the good town of Belford than any one, looking at the number of good houses and of pretty young women, could well have thought possible.”