The journey To Nuneham:  UNGRACious reception.

Their majesties went to Nuneham to breakfast.  Miss Planta and myself were not to follow till after an early dinner.  Princess Elizabeth, in a whisper, after the rest left the room,- advised me to go and lie down again as soon as they were gone.  And, indeed, I was sufficiently fatigued to be glad to follow the advice.

My dear Mrs. Delany came to sit with me while I packed up.  What a pleasure to rne is her constant society, and the reciprocal confidence of all our conversations !  She intrusts me with every thing in the world-I intrust her with every thing that now happens to me.

Our early dinner was with Mrs. Schwellenberg and Miss Mawer.  We set out at three o’clock, and took with us Mrs. Thielky, the queen’s wardrobe woman, and the comfort of my life in the absence of Mrs. Schwellenberg, for she is the real acting person, though I am the apparent one :  and she is also a very good sort of woman,-plain, sensible, clear-headed, mild-mannered, sedate, and steady.  I found her in this journey of infinite service, for she not only did almost every thing for the queen, but made it her business to supply also the place of maid to me, as much as ever I would suffer her.  How fortunate for me that the person so immediately under me should be so good a creature !  The other person we took was a Miss 375

Mhaughendorf, a dresser to the Princesses Royal and Augusta, a very pleasing young woman, gentle and in teresting, who is just come from the king ,s German dominions to this place, to which she has been recommended by her father, who is clerk of the kitchen to the Duke of York.  The princesses have a German in this office, to assist their study of that language, which, in their future destinations, may prove essential to them.

Miss Planta’s post in the Court-calendar is that of English teacher, but it seems to me, that of personal attendant upon the two eldest princesses.  She is with them always when they sup, work, take their lessons, or walk.

We arrived at Nunebam at about six o’clock.  The house is one of those straggling, half new, half old, half comfortable, and half forlorn mansions, that are begun in one generation and finished in another.  It is very pleasantly situated, and commands, from some points of view, all the towers of Oxford.

In going across the park to the entrance, we saw not a creature.  All were busy, either in attendance upon the royal guests, or in finding hiding-places from whence to peep at them.  We stopped at the portico,-but not even a porter was there :  we were obliged to get out of the carriage by the help of one of the postilions, and to enter the house by the help of wet grass, which would not suffer me to stay out of it, otherwise, I felt so strange in going in uninvited and unconducted, that I should have begged leave to stroll about till somebody appeared.