His look was stern, though dejected, as he followed her into the vehicle; but when his eye, which, however short sighted, was quick to mental perception, saw how ill at ease appeared his companion, all sternness subsided into an undisguised expression of the strongest emotion, that seemed to claim her sympathy, though to revolt from her compassion; while, with a shaking hand, and pointing finger, he directed her looks to the mansion from which they were driving; and, when they faced it from the coach window, as they turned into Streatham Common, tremulously exclaiming: “That house ... is lost to me—for ever!”
During a moment he then fixed upon her an interrogative eye, that impetuously demanded: “Do you not perceive the change I am experiencing?”
A sorrowing sigh was her only answer.
Pride and delicacy then united to make him leave her to her taciturnity.
He was too deeply, however, disturbed to start or to bear any other subject; and neither of them uttered a single word till the coach stopt in St. Martin’s-street, and the house and the carriage door were opened for their separation! He then suddenly and expressively looked at her, abruptly grasped her hand, and, with an air of affection, though in a low, husky voice, murmured rather than said: “Good morning, dear lady!” but turned his head quickly away, to avoid any species of answer.
She was deeply touched by so gentle an acquiescence in her declining the confidential discourse upon which he had indubitably meant to open, relative to this mysterious alienation. But she had the comfort to be satisfied, that he saw and believed in her sincere participation in his feelings; while he allowed for the grateful attachment that bound her to a friend so loved; who, to her at least, still manifested a fervour of regard that resisted all change; alike from this new partiality, and from the undisguised, and even strenuous opposition of the Memorialist to its indulgence.
The “Adieu, Streatham!” that had been uttered figuratively by Dr. Burney, without any knowledge of its nearness to reality, was now fast approaching to becoming a mere matter of fact; for, to the almost equal grief, however far from equal loss, of Dr. Johnson and Dr. Burney, Streatham, a short time afterwards, though not publicly relinquished, was quitted by Mrs. Thrale and her family.
Both friends rejoiced, however, that the library and the pictures, at least, on this first breaking up, fell into the hands of so able an appreciator of literature and of painting, as the Earl of Shelburne.[44]
Mrs. Thrale removed first to Brighton, and next repaired to pass a winter in Argyll Street, previously to fixing her ultimate proceedings.