Book Thirteen

Chapters 7 - 12

Summary

Nightingale leaves Tom to himself at the masquerade. Jones hopes to find Sophia there and keeps a lookout for her. A lady in a domino comes up to Tom and mentions the name Miss Western. Jones starts following this lady now. He keeps asking about Sophia but this masked lady reveals nothing, instead she begins flirting with him. She seems to know many people at the masquerade. Tom follows the lady to her house. He sees that she is not Mrs. Fitzpatrick as he had thought, but Lady Bellaston. The lady promises to deliver Sophia to Tom and they fix another meeting.

The next morning, Tom is in possession of money that he must have got from Lady Bellaston. Mrs. Jones & Mr. Nightingale dine that day with Mrs. Miller, she tells the company about a poor family in distress. She talks at great length about them. Tom is so moved by this account that he gives Mrs. Miller's some money to give the wretched family. Nightingale too contributes for the well being of the distressed family. But, he does not give as much as Tom and Mrs. Miller and Nancy notice the difference.

Jones continues to meet Lady Bellaston but she does not give him any news of Sophia. As Jones grows more impatient, Lady Bellason gets even more irritated at the mention of Sophia. Tom tries to find out about Sophia with the help of Partridge. At the same time he starts getting weighed under Lady Bellaston's obligations and thinks he will be ungrateful if he is not nice to her. Lady Bellaston asks Tom to come and meet her at her place. Nightingale urges him to go elsewhere. Lady Bellaston sends Sophia away to a play and Mrs. Honour on an errand with Mrs. Etoff, thus ensuring that an empty house.

Mrs. Miller introduces her poor cousin to Tom. This is the same cousin she had spoken about earlier. It turns out that this man is the same highway robber who Tom had pardoned and had helped earlier. He is now obliged greatly to Tom's generosity and praises him. But, they both do not tell Mrs. Miller that they have met before, as that would have put the cousin in an embarrassing light. Mrs. Miller praises Tom a lot, while the latter goes to meet Lady Bellaston as his appointment with her is fixed.

Sophia pretends that she does not know Tom, when Lady Bellaston speaks to her about him. Lady Bellaston tells Sophia that she suspected that the young man was none other than Tom. Sophia says that he is not and then the lady teases her a bit. The two ladies separate and Sophia is very upset.

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