after such a beginning , you have every right to suppose that i am about to launch into a most exciting narrative of the days eventsa masqued ball and a highwayman would not , perhaps , be too much to expectbut alas , i have very little to report , because my sore throat and general malaise have but given way to a most irritating and persistent cough , so that my mother has decreed that i am still too unwell to return to the public rooms ; and if i suspect that this decision was inspired almost entirely by her disinclination to have anyone witness her daughter in the throes of an inelegant coughing fit , that has little to say to the matter .