The provost is very fat, with a large paunch and gouty legs.  He is good-humoured, loquacious, gay, civil, and parading.  I am told, nevertheless, he is a poet, and a very good one.  This, indeed, appears not, neither in a person such as I have described, nor in manners such as have drawn from me the character just given. 441

Mrs. Roberts is a fine woman, though no longer very young; she is his second wife, and very kind to all his family.  She seems good-natured and sensible.

The evening turned out very well:  they were so delighted with making a visit under the royal roof, that everything that passed pleased them:  and the sight of that disposition helped me to a little more spirit than usual in receiving them.

The king came into the room to fetch Mrs. Delany, and looked much disappointed at missing her; nevertheless, he came forward, and entered into conversation with the provost, upon Eton, the present state of the school, and all that belongs to its establishment.  His majestytakes a great interest in the welfare and prosperity of that seminary.

The provost was enchanted by this opportunity of a long and private conference, and his lady was in raptures in witnessing it.  She concluded, from that time, that the door would never open, but for the entrance of some of the royal family; and when the equerries came, she whispered me, " Who are they ? " And again, on the appearance of a star on the Duke of Montagu., she said, “Who can that be, Miss Burney?”

THE EQUERRIES VIOLATE THE RULES.

Dec. 10.-Mrs. Delany, upon her recovery,(227) had invited the general and colonel to come to tea any evening.  For them to be absent from the Lodge was contrary to all known rules ; but the colonel vowed he would let the matter be tried, and take its course.  Mrs. Delany hoped by this means to bring the colonel into better humour with my desertion of the teatable, and to reconcile him to an innovation of which he then must become a partaker.

On the day when this grand experiment was to be made, that we might not seem all to have eloped clandestinely, in case of inquiry, I previously made known to the queen my own intention, and had her permission for my visit.  But the gentlemen, determining to build upon the chance of returning before they were missed, gave no notice of their scheme, but followed me to Mrs. Delany’s as soon as they quitted their own table.  I had sent to speak with General Bud`e in the morning, and then arranged the party:  he proposed that the colonel and

442

himself should esquire me, but I did not dare march forth in such bold defiance ; I told him, therefore, I must go in a chair.

Mrs. Delany received us with her usual sweetness.  We then began amusing ourselves with surmises of the manner in which we should all be missed, if our rooms were visited in our absence ; and the colonel, in particular, drew several scenes, highly diverting, of what he supposed would pass,-of the king’s surprise and incredulity, of the hunting up and down of the house in search of him, and of the orders issued throughout the house to examine to what bed-post he had hanged himself,-for nothing less than such an act of desperation could give courage to an equerry to be absent without leave!