"How enchanted should I have been," cried I, "to have presented my little book to each of your royal highnesses if I had dared! or if, after her majesty has looked it over, I might hope for such a permission, how proud and how happy it would make me!"
"O, I daresay you may," cried the Princess Augusta, eagerly. I then intimated how deeply I should feel such an honour, if it might be asked, after her majesty had read it - and the Princess Elizabeth gracefully undertook the office. She related to me, in a most pleasant manner, the whole of her own recent transaction, its rise and cause and progress, in "The Page 109
Birth of Love:"(127) but I must here abridge, or never have done. I told them all my scheme for coming again next July, which they sweetly seconded. Princess Amelia assured me she had not forgotten me ; and when another summons came for the concert, Princess Augusta, comically sitting still and holding me by her side, called out, "Do you little ones go!"
But they loitered also, and we went on, on, on, with our chat,- -they as unwilling as myself to break it up,-till staying longer was impossible ; and then, in parting, they all expressed the kindest pleasure in our newly-adopted plan of a yearly visit.
"And pray," cried Princess Elizabeth, "write again immediately!"
"O, no," cried Princess Augusta, "wait half a year—to rest; and then—increase your family—all ways!"
"The queen," said Princess Elizabeth, "consulted me which way she should read 'Camilla-' whether quick, at once, or comfortably at Weymouth: so I answered, 'Why, mamma, I think, as you will be so much interested in the book, Madame d'Arblay would be most pleased you should read it now at once, quick, that nobody may be mentioning the events before You come to them - and then again at Weymouth, slow and comfortably.'"
In going, the sweet Princess Augusta loitered last but her youngest sister, Amelia, who came to take my hand when the rest were departed, and assure me she should never forget Me.
We spent the remnant of Wednesday evening with my old friends, determining to quit Windsor the next day, if the weather did not promise a view of the royal family upon the Terrace for M. d'Arblay.