“Sir!—” was again all my answer and again, like the lady, he begged my pardon, and retreated and I was too seriously earnest to pursue my business to dare lose a moment. On, therefore, I again hurried; but, at the very door of my room, which is three steps down and three up place out of the even line of the gallery, I was once more stopped, by a very fat lady: who, coming up to me, also said “Miss Burney, I believe?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“We have just,” cried she, “been to wait upon you,—but I could find nobody to introduce me; I believe I must introduce myself,—Lady Effingham.”
I thanked her for the honour she did me,—but when she proposed returning with me to my room, in order to finish her visit, I was quite disconcerted; and hesitated so much that she said “Perhaps it is not convenient to you?—”
“Ma'am—I—I was just going to dress—” cried I; I meant to add, and ought to have added, to “wait upon the queen,” but I was so unused to such a plea, that it sounded as a liberty to my mind's voice, and I could not get it out.
She desired she might be no impediment to me,—and we parted I was forced to let her go and to run into my own room, and fly—to my toilette Not quite the sort of flight I have been used to making. However, all is so new here that it makes but a part in the general change of system.
The lady who had met me first was her daughter, Lady Frances Howard; and the gentleman, her second husband, Sir George Howard.
I afterwards saw her ladyship in the queen's dressing-room, where her majesty sent for her as soon as she was dressed, and very graciously kept me some time, addressing me frequently while I stayed, in the conversation that took place, as if with a sweet view to point out to this first lady of her bedchamber I have yet seen, the favourable light in which she considers me.