_Thursday, June 8._--We went to Bath Easton. Mrs. Lambart went with us.
The house is charmingly situated, well fitted up, convenient, and
pleasant, and not large, but commodious and elegant. Thursday is still
their public day for company, though the business of the vase is over
for this season.
The room into which we were conducted was so much crowded we could
hardly make our way. Lady Miller came to the door, and, as she had first
done to the rest of us, took my hand, and led me up to a most prodigious
fat old lady, and introduced me to her. This was Mrs. Riggs, her
ladyship's mother, who seems to have Bath Easton and its owners under
her feet.
I was smiled upon with a graciousness designedly marked, and seemed most
uncommonly welcome. Mrs. Riggs looked as if she could have shouted for
joy at sight of me! She is mighty merry and facetious, Sir John was very
quiet, but very civil.
I saw the place appropriated for the vase, but at this time it was
removed. As it was hot, Sir John Miller offered us to walk round the
house, and see his greenhouse, etc. So away we set off, Harriet Bowdler
accompanying me, and some others following.
We had not strolled far ere we were overtaken by another party, and
among them I perceived Miss W-- my new sceptical friend. She joined me
immediately, and I found she was by no means in so sad a humour as when
I saw her last, on the contrary, she seemed flightily gay.
“Were you never here before?” she asked me.
“No.”
“No? why what an acquisition you are then! I suppose you will contribute
to the vase?”
“No, indeed!”
“No more you ought; you are quite too good for it.”
“No, not that; but I have no great passion for making the trial. You, I
suppose, have contributed?”
“No, never--I can't. I have tried, but I could never write verses in my
life--never get beyond Cupid and stupid.”
“Did Cupid, then, always come in your way? what a mischievous urchin!”
“No, he has not been very mischievous to me this year.”
“Not this year? Oh, very well! He has spared you, then, for a whole
twelvemonth!”
She laughed, and we were interrupted by more company.
Some time after, while I was talking with Miss W-- and Harriet Bowdler,
Mrs. Riggs came up to us, and with an expression of comical admiration,
fixed her eyes upon me, and for some time amused herself with apparently
watching me. Mrs. Lambart, who was at cards, turned round and begged me
to give her her cloak, for she felt rheumatic; I could not readily find
it, and, after looking some time, I was obliged to give her my own;
but while I was hunting, Mrs. Riggs followed me, laughing, nodding, and
looking much delighted, and every now and then saying,
“That's right, Evelina--Ah! look for it, Evelina!--Evelina always
did so--she always looked for people's cloaks, and was obliging and
well-bred!”
I grinned a little, to be sure, but tried to escape her, by again
getting between Miss W-- and Harriet Bowdler; but Mrs. Riggs still kept
opposite to me, expressing from time to time, by uplifted hands and
eyes, comical applause, Harriet Bowdler modestly mumbled some praise,
but addressed it to Miss Thrale. I begged a truce, and retired to a
chair in a corner, at the request of Miss W-- to have a tete-a-tete, for
which, however, her strange levity gave me no great desire. She begged
to know if I had written anything else. I assured her never.
“The 'Sylph,'” said she, “I am told, was yours.”
“I had nothing at all to do with that or anything else that ever was
published but 'Evelina;' you, I suppose, read the 'Sylph' for its name's
sake?”
“No; I never read novels--I hate them; I never read 'Evelina' till I
was quite persecuted by hearing it talked of. 'Sir Charles Grandison' I
tried once, but could not bear it; Sir Charles for a lover! no lover
for me! for a guardian or the trustee of an estate, he might do very
well--but for a lover!”
“What--when he bows upon your hand! would not that do?”
She kept me by her side for a full hour, and we again talked over
our former conversation; and I enquired what first led her to seeking
infidel books?
“Pope,” she said; he was himself a deist, she believed, and his praise
of Bolingbroke made her mad to read his books, and then the rest
followed easily. She also gave me an account of her private and
domestic life; of her misery at home, her search of dissipation, and her
incapability of happiness.