I then begged to know if I might present it-myself, or whether I should give it to Mrs. Schwellenberg.
“O, to me! to me!” she cried, with kind eagerness. She added, however, not then; as she was going to breakfast.
This done was already some relief, terrible as was all that remained; but I now knew I must go on, and that all my fears and horrors were powerless to stop me.
This was a Drawing-room day. I saw the king at St. James’s, and he made the most gracious inquiries about my health: so did each of the princesses. I found they were now all aware of its failure. The queen proposed to me to see Dr. Gisburne: the king seconded the proposition. There was no refusing; yet, just now, it was distressing to comply.
The next morning, Friday, when again I was alone with the queen, she named the subject, and told me she would rather I should give the paper to the Schwellenberg, who had been lamenting to her my want of confidence in her, and saying I confided and told everything to the queen. “I answered,” continued her majesty, “that you were always very good; but that, with regard to confiding, you seemed so happy with all your family, and to live so well together, that there was nothing to say.”
I now perceived Mrs. Schwellenberg suspected some dissension at home was the cause of my depression. I was sorry not to deliver my memorial to the Principal person, and yet glad to have it to do where I felt so much less compunction in giving pain.
THE MEMORIAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTE.
I now desired an audience of Mrs. Schwellenberg. With what trembling agitation did I deliver her my paper, requesting her to have the goodness to lay it at the feet of the queen before her majesty left town! We were then to set out for Windsor before twelve o’clock. Mrs. Schwellenberg herself remained in town.