Nevertheless, though he has by no means treated it with the praise so lavishly bestowed upon it from other quarters, I had the satisfaction to observe that he was even greedily eager to go on with it ; so that I flatter myself the story caught his attention:  and, indeed, allowing for my mauling reading, he gave it quite as much credit as I had any reason to expect.  But, now that I was sensible of my error in being ’my own mistress of the ceremonies, I determined to leave to Hetty the third volume, and therefore pretended I had not brought it.  He was in a delightful ill humour about it, and I enjoyed his impatience far more than I should have done his forbearance.  Hetty, therefore, when she comes, has undertaken to bring it, 65

I have had a visit from my beloved Susy, who, with my mother(31) and little Sally,(32) spent a day here, to my no small satisfaction; and yet I was put into an embarrassment, of which I even yet know not what will be the end, during their short stay:  for Mr. Crisp, before my mother, very innocently said, “O!  Susan, pray Susette, do send me the third volume of “Evelina;” Fanny brought me the two first on purpose, I believe, to tantalize me.”

I felt ’myself in a ferment ; and Susan, too, looked foolish, and knew.not what to answer.  As I sat on the same sofa with him, I gave him a gentle shove, as a token, which he could not but understand, that he had said something wrong—­though I believe he could not imagine what.  Indeed, how should he?

My mother instantly darted forward, and repeated “Evelina,—­ what’s that, pray?”

Again I jolted Mr. Crisp, who, very much perplexed, said, in a boggling manner, that it was a novel-he supposed from the circulating library—­only a trumpery novel.”

Ah, my dear daddy! thought I, you would have devised some other sort of speech, if you knew all!  But he was really, as he well might be, quite at a loss for what I wanted him to say.

“You have had it here, then, have you?” continued my mother.

“Yes-two of the volumes,” said Mr. Crisp.

“What, had you them from the library?” asked my mother.

“No, ma’am,” answered I, horribly frightened, “from my sister.”

The truth is, the books are Susan’s, who bought them the first day of publication; but I did not dare own that, as it would have been almost an acknowledgment of all the rest.

She asked some further questions, to which we made the same sort of answers, and then the matter dropped.  Whether itrests upon her mind, or not, I cannot tell.

Two days after, I received from Charlotte a letter the most intereiting that could be written to me, for it acquainted me that My dear father was, at length, reading my book, which has now been published six months.  How this has come to pass, I am yet in the dark; but, it seems, that the very Moment almost that my mother and Susan and 66