"I really think it very pretty," she said, adding in the most winning manner, "I hope Miss Burney and Miss P. approve it. Princess Elizabeth's gift is a fairing from Cheltenham--a most elegant little box, containing a bottle of rose perfume which came to mama from India, in the great box from the Bengal Nabob."
This would add interest to the gift, these bottles consisting of a minute tube of the precious oil of roses, enclosed, as it were, in a thick tube of embossed glass, ornamented with gold and sealed. Each of the lovely Princesses now brought her gift, and each spoke with us with the most conciliatory softness. Princess Elizabeth said laughing:--
"How go the equerries' teas, Miss Burney? Do they still insist on their right to wait on you, even when Mrs Schwellenberg is present?"
Miss Burney curtseyed, a little out of countenance. I put in my word:--
"Why, Ma'am, they are very constant. We have much entertainment from Colonel Manners and Mr de la Giffardière--especially the latter."
"I can believe that," said she, laughing again. "His spirits grow more boisterous daily. Mama says an hour of his company is like a walk in a high wind. But you know how we all value and respect him. What a contrast to poor Colonel Digby!"
"I imagine, Ma'am, that Colonel Digby too is recovering his spirits a little under our united kind treatment. He was even observed in a melancholy smile yesterday," said I.
Her Royal Highness smiled with a soft meaning kindness on Miss Burney, whose eyes were fixed on the floor. This convinced me, if I had needed conviction, that the Queen intended the allusion she had made to Colonel Digby, and there had been a something in her tone, indescribable but audible, which indicated disapproval. I considered myself that the man had quite as much encouragement as he needed if his intentions were serious. I could not make him out. There were times when I saw a growing interest in Miss Burney, and he indeed haunted her parlour; yet was I assured that in London he was assiduous in waiting on Miss Gunning--a young lady with every advantage of fortune, beauty, and connection. I own the thought sometimes occurred to me that he might be that most despicable of characters--a male flirt. I had thoughts sometimes also of a word of warning to Miss Burney, but was restrained by fear of her displeasure.
Two days later Colonel Manners and Colonel Digby waited on us to tea, Mr de la Giffardière following. Colonel Digby wore his Vice-Chamberlain's uniform, being to wait on the Queen, and a very handsome sight he made, adding all the advantages of birth and breeding to extreme good looks. Miss Burney, with a pleasure she could not conceal, found the conversation turn to "Evelina," Colonel Manners praised it in his gay light-hearted way, and declared its special glory in his eyes to be the character of Captain Mirvan. He asserted it was that which gave rise to the suspicion that the author was a man, since a lady could scarcely be supposed capable of drawing a portrait of such vulgarity in such bold strokes. I now saw Miss Burney wavering whether to receive this as compliment or insult, when immediately Colonel Manners, whom no awe can check, broke out into Dibdin's song, applying it, as it were, to Captain Mirvan:--
I've a spanking wife at Portsmouth Gates,
A pigmy at Goree.
An orange-tawny up the Straits,
A black at St. Lucie.
Thus whatsomedever course I bend
I lead a jovial life--