“What!” cried Mrs. Dobson, “is that the lady that has favoured us with that excellent novel?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
Then burst forth a whole volley from all at once. “Very extraordinary, indeed!” said one;—“Dear heart, who'd have thought it?” said another,—“I never saw the like in my life!” said a third. And Mrs. Dobson, entering more into detail, began praising it through, but chiefly Evelina herself, which she said was the most natural character she had ever met in any book.
Mr. and Mrs. Whalley now arrived, and I was obliged to go to a chair—when such staring followed; they could not have opened their eyes wider when they first looked at the Guildhall giants! I looked with all the gravity and demureness possible, in order to keep them from coming plump to the subject again, and, indeed this, for a while, kept them off.
Soon after, Dr. Harrington[121] arrived, which closed our party. Miss L— went whispering to him, and then came up to me, with a look of dismay, and said,
“O, ma'am, I'm so prodigiously concerned; Mr. Henry won't come!”
“Who, ma'am?”
“Mr. Henry, ma'am, the doctor's son. But, to be sure, he does not know you are here, or else—but I'm quite concerned, indeed, for here now we shall have no young gentlemen!”
“O, all the better,” cried I, “I hope we shall be able to do very well without.”
“O yes, ma'am, to be sure. I don't mean for any common young gentlemen; but Mr. Henry, ma'am, it's quite another thing;—however, I think he might have come but I did not happen to mention in my card that you was to be here, and so—but I think it serves him right for not coming to see me.”