SISTER AUTHORESSES.
(Fanny Burney to Mrs. Philips, late Miss Susan Burney.)
February, 1782.
As I have a frank and a subject, I will leave my bothers, and write you and my dear brother Molesworth[145] a little account of a rout I have just been at, at the house of Mr. Paradise.
You will wonder, perhaps, in this time of hurry, why I went thither; but when I tell you Pacchierotti[146] was there, you will not think it surprising.
There was a crowd of company; Charlotte and I went together; my father came afterwards. Mrs. Paradise received us very graciously, and led me immediately up to Miss Thrale, who was sitting by the Pac.
We were very late, for we had waited cruelly for the coach, and Pac. had sung a song out of “Artaxerxes,” composed for a tenor, which we lost, to my infinite regret. Afterwards he sang “Dolce speme” delightfully.
Mrs. Paradise, leaning over the Kirwans and Charlotte, who hardly got a seat all night for the crowd, said she begged to speak to me. I squeezed my great person out, and she then said,—
“Miss Burney, Lady Say and Sele desires the honour of being introduced to you.”
Her ladyship stood by her side. She seems pretty near fifty-at least turned forty; her head was full of feathers, flowers, jewels, and gew-gaws, and as high as Lady Archer's her dress was trimmed with beads, silver, persian sashes, and all sorts of fine fancies; her face is thin and fiery, and her whole manner spoke a lady all alive.