“No, ma’am, no; ’tis all in prose, I assure you.  ’Tis a novel; and an exceeding—­but it does nothing good to be praised too much, so I will say nothing more about it:  only this, that Mr. Burke sat up all night to read it.”

" Indeed?  Well, I propose myself great pleasure from it and I am gratified by hearing it is written by a woman.”

“And Sir Joshua Reynolds,” continued Mrs. Thrale, “has been offering fifty pounds to know the author.”

“Well, I will have it to read on my journey; I am going to Berkshire, and it shall be my travelling book.”

" No, ma’am if you please you shall have it now.  Queeny, do look it for Mrs. Montagu, and let it be put in her carriage, and go to town with her.”

Miss Thrale rose to look for it, and involuntarily I rose too, intending to walk off, for my situation was inexpressibly awkward; but then I recollected that if I went away, it might seem like giving Mrs. Thrale leave and opportunity to tell my tale, and therefore I stopped at a distant window, where I busied myself in contemplating the poultry.

“And Dr. Johnson, ma’am,” added my kind puffer, “says

102

Fielding never wrote so well—­never wrote equal to this book; he says it is a better picture of life and manners than is to be found anywhere in Fielding.”

“Indeed?” cried Mrs. Montagu, surprised; “that I did not expect, for I have been informed it is the work of a young lady and therefore, though I expected a very pretty book, I supposed it to be a work of mere imagination, and the name I thought attractive; but life and manners I never dreamt of finding.”

“Well, ma’am, what I tell you is literally true; and for my part, I am never better pleased than when good girls write clever books—­and that this is clever—­But all this time we are killing Miss Burney, who wrote the book herself.”

What a clap of thunder was this !-the last thing in the world I should have expected before my face?  I know not what bewitched Mrs. Thrale, but this was carrying the jest further than ever.  All retenu being now at an end, I fairly and abruptly took to my heels, and ran out of the room with the utmost trepidation, amidst astonished exclamations from Mrs, Montagu and Miss Gregory.

I was horribly disconcerted, but I am now so irrecoverably in for it, that I begin to leave off reproaches and expostulations; indeed, they have very little availed me while they might have been of service, but now they would pass for mere parade and affectation; and therefore since they can do no good, I gulp them down.  I find them, indeed, somewhat hard of digestion, but they must make their own way as well as they can.

I determined not to make my appearance again till dinner was upon table; yet I could neither read nor write, nor indeed do any thing but consider the new situation in life into which I am thus hurried—­I had almost said forced—­and if I had, methinks it would be no untruth.