It is the custom for everybody they speak to to attend them out, but they would not suffer Mrs. Delany to move.  Miss Port, Mr. Dewes, and his little daughter, and myself, all accompanied them, and saw them in their coach, and received their last gracious nods. 314

When they were gone, Mrs. Delany confessed she had heard the king’s knock at the door before she came into the drawinroom, but would not avow it, that I might not run away.  Well ! being over was so good a thing, that I could not but be content.

The queen, indeed, is a most charming woman.  She appears to me full of sense and graciousness, mingled with delicacy of mind and liveliness of temper.  She speaks English almost perfectly well, with great choice and copiousness of language, though now and then with foreign idiom, and frequently with a foreign accent.  Her manners have an easy dignity, with a most engaging simplicity, and she has all that fine high breeding which the mind, not the station, gives, of carefully avoiding to distress those who converse with her, or studiously removing the embarrassment she cannot prevent.

The king, however he may have power, in the cabinet, to command himself, has, in private, the appearance of a character the most open and sincere.  He speaks his opinions without reserve, and seems to trust them intuitively to his hearers, from a belief they will make no ill use of them.  His countenance is full of inquiry, to gain information without asking it, probably from believing that to be the nearest road to truth.  All I saw of both was the most perfect good humour, good spirits, ease, and pleasantness.

Their behaviour to each other speaks the most cordial confidence and happiness.  The king seems to admire as much as he enjoys her conversation, and to covet her participation in everything he either sees or hears.  The queen appears to feel the most grateful regard for him, and to make it her chief study to raise his consequence with others, by always marking that she considers herself, though queen to the nation, only to him, the first and most obedient of subjects.  Indeed, in their different ways, and allowing for the difference of their characters, they left me equally charmed both with their behaviour to each other and to myself.

The king again:  Tea table etiquette.

Monday, Dec. 19-In the evening, while Mrs. Delany, Miss Port, and I were sitting and working together in the drawing-room, the door was opened, and the king entered.

We all started up; Miss Port flew to her modest post by the door, and I to my more comfortable one opposite the fire, 315 . which caused me but a slight and gentle retreat, and Mrs. Delany he immediately commanded to take her own place again.

He was full of joy for the Princess Elizabeth.  He had been to the lower Lodge, and found her in a sweet sleep, and she was now, he said, in a course of James’s powders, from which he hoped her perfect restoration.  I fear, however, it is still but precarious.