Again I jolted Mr. Crisp, who, very much perplexed, said, in a boggling manner, that it was a novel—he supposed from the circulating library—only a “trumpery novel.”
Ah, my dear daddy! thought I, you would have devised some other sort of speech, if you knew all! But he was really, as he well might be, quite at a loss for what I wanted him to say.
“You have had it here, then, have you?” continued my mother.
“Yes—two of the volumes,” said Mr. Crisp.
“What, had you them from the library?” asked my mother.
“No, ma'am,” answered I, horribly frightened, “from my sister.”
The truth is, the books are Susan's, who bought them the first day of publication; but I did not dare own that, as it would have been almost an acknowledgment of all the rest.
She asked some further questions, to which we made the same sort of answers, and then the matter dropped. Whether it rests upon her mind, or not, I cannot tell.
Two days after, I received from Charlotte a letter the most interesting that could be written to me, for it acquainted me that My dear father was, at length, reading my book, which has now been published six months. How this has come to pass, I am yet in the dark; but, it seems, that the very Moment almost that my mother and Susan and Sally left the house, he desired Charlotte to bring him the “Monthly Review;” she contrived to look over his shoulder as he opened it, which he did at the account of “Evelina; Or, a Young Lady's Entrance into the World.” He read it with great earnestness, then put it down; and presently after snatched it up, and read it again. Doubtless, his paternal heart felt some agitation for his girl, in reading a review of her publication![33]—how he got at the name, I cannot imagine.
Soon after he turned to Charlotte, and bidding her come close to him, he put his finger on the word “Evelina,” and saying, she knew what it was, bade her—write down the name, and send the man to Lowndes, as if for herself. This she did, and away went William.