“O, I hate her,” cried the duchess, “resisting that sweet Cecilia; coaxing her, too, all the time, with such hypocritical flattery.”
“I shall never forget,” said Mrs. Delany, “your grace's earnestness when we came to that part where Mrs. Delvile bursts a blood vessel. Down dropped the book, and just with the same energy as if your grace had heard some real and important news, You called out, 'I'm glad of it with all my heart!'”
“What disputes, too,” said Mrs. Chapone, “there are about Briggs. I was in a room some time ago where somebody said there could be no such character; and a poor little mean city man, who was there, started up and said, 'But there is though, for I've one myself!'”
“The Harrels!—O, then the Harrels!” cried Mrs. Delany.
“If you speak of the Harrels, and of the morality of the book,” cried the duchess, with a solemn sort of voice, “we shall, indeed, never give Miss Burney her due: so striking, so pure, so genuine, so instructive.”
“Yes,” cried Mrs. Chapone, “let us complain how we will of the torture she has given our nerves, we must all join in saying she has bettered us by every line.”
“No book,” said Mrs. Delany, “ever was so useful as this, because none other that is so good was ever so much read.”
I think I need now write no more. I could, indeed, hear no more; for this last so serious praise, from characters so respectable, so moral, and so aged, quite affected me; and though I had wished a thousand times during the discourse to run out of the room, when they gave me finally this solemn sanction to the meaning and intention of my writing, I found it not without difficulty that I could keep the tears out of my eyes; and when I told what had passed to our sweet father, his cup quite ran over.
The duchess had the good sense and judgment to feel she had drawn up her panegyric to a climax, and therefore here she stopped; so, however, did not we, for our coach was ready.