When I found, by her taught songs, what a delightful singer she was capable of becoming, I really had not patience to hear her little French airs, and entreated her to give them up, but the little rogue instantly began pestering me with them, singing one after another with a comical sort of malice, and following me round the room, when I said I would not listen to her, to say, “But is not this pretty?—­and this?—­and this?” singing away with all her might and main.

She sung without any accompaniment, as we had no instrument ; but the S. S. says she plays too, very well.  Indeed, I fancy she can do well whatever she pleases.

We hardly knew how to get away from her when the carriage was ready to take us from Tunbridge, and Mrs. Thrale was so much enchanted with her that she went on the Pantiles and bought her a very beautiful inkstand.

“I don’t mean, Miss Birch,” she said, when she gave it her, “to present you this toy as to a child, but merely to beg you will do me the favour to accept something that may make you now and then remember us.”

She was much delighted with this present, and told me, in a whisper, that she should put a drawing of it in her journal.

So you see, Susy, other children have had this whim.  But something being said of novels, the S. S. said—­

“Selina, do you ever read them?”—­And, with a sigh, the little girl answered—­

“But too often!—–­I wish I did not:  153

The only thing i did not like in this seducing little creature was our leave-taking.  The S. S. had, as we expected, her fine eyes suffused with tears, and nothing would serve the little Selina, who admires the S. S. passionately, but that she, also, must weep-and weep, therefore, she did, and that in a manner as pretty to look at, as soft, as melting, and as little to her discomposure, as the weeping of her fair exemplar.  The child’s success in this pathetic art made the tears of both appear to the whole party to be lodged, as the English merchant says, “very near the eyes!”

Doubtful as it is whether we shall ever see this sweet syren again, nothing, as Mrs. Thrale said to her, can be more certain than that we shall hear of her again, let her go whither she will.

Charmed as we all were with her, we all agreed that to have the care of her would be distraction!  “She seems the girl in the world,” Mrs. Thrale wisely said, “to attain the highest reach of human perfection as a man’s mistress!—­as such she would be a second Cleopatra, and have the world at her command.”

Poor thing!  I hope to heaven she willescape such sovereignty and such honours!

At Brighton:  A “Cure.”  The jealous Cumberlands.

We left Tunbridge Wells, and got, by dinner time, to our first stage, Uckfield.  Our next stage brought us to Brighthelmstone, where I fancy we shall stay till the Parliament calls away Mr. Thrale.(106)