“Just then, Mrs. and Miss Horneck were announced....
“Mrs. Horneck, as I found in the course of the evening, is an exceeding sensible, well-bred woman.[[40]] Her daughter is very beautiful; but was low-spirited and silent during the whole visit. She was, indeed, very unhappy, as Miss Palmer informed me, upon account of some ill news she had lately heard of the affairs of a gentleman to whom she is shortly to be married.
“Not long after came a whole troop, consisting of Mr. Cholmondeley!—O perilous name!—Miss Cholmondeley, and Miss Fanny Cholmondeley, his daughters, and Miss Forrest. Mrs. Cholmondeley, I found, was engaged elsewhere, but soon expected.
“Now here was a trick of Sir Joshua, to make me meet all these people!
“Mr. Cholmondeley is a clergyman; nothing shining either in person or manners, but rather somewhat grim in the first, and glum in the last. Yet he appears to have humour himself, and to enjoy it much in others....
“Next came my father, all gaiety and spirits. Then Mr. William Burke. Soon after, Sir Joshua returned home. He paid his compliments to everybody, and then brought a chair next mine, and said:
“‘So you were afraid to come among us?’
“I don’t know if I wrote to you a speech to that purpose, which I made to the Miss Palmers? and which, I suppose, they had repeated to him. He went on, saying I might as well fear hobgoblins, and that I had only to hold up my head to be above them all.
“After this address, his behaviour was exactly what my wishes would have dictated to him, for my own ease and quietness; for he never once even alluded to my book, but conversed rationally, gaily, and serenely: and so I became more comfortable than I had been ever since the first entrance of company....
“Our confab was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. King; a gentleman who is, it seems, for ever with the Burkes; and presently Lord Palmerston[[41]] was announced.