Fanny's First Novel

|IT was an interesting experience for Miss Burney, the writer of novels and the writer of letters. She had never sat down with such a company. They all had their table peculiari...

|HE was beside her before she was aware of it, in the great music-room at Lady Hales's house. She had not seen him approach her--she could not have done so without turning round...

|THE levity shown by Fanny Burney and the flippancy of her phrases did not wholly conceal from her sisters all that she was feeling on the subject of the proposal to which she h...

|TWO or three weeks passed without her hearing anything of the book, and it seemed as if it had fallen, as she had at some moments hoped it would fall, like a dull stone into th...

|THE scene ended by Mr. Garrick's victim groping through his tears for Mr. Garrick's hand. He grasped it emotionally, and though for some moments he was too greatly overcome to...

|MRS. BARLOWE did not seem half pleased to be brought down so from the high parallels of etiquette among which she had been soaring. But she had lost her place, and before she c...

|THE next morning was a lovely one, and Fanny was feeding the ducks in the brook before eight o'clock. When she came into the house to breakfast she found Mr. Crisp in the porch.

|THESE foreigners!” exclaimed young Edward Burney when Rauzzini had left them, and Fanny was asking her cousin if her father was not looking for her. “These foreigners! Your fat...

|IT was not yet six o'clock and the sun was not due to set for more than another hour. The evening was a lovely one. From the shrubberies around the house came the liquid notes...

|SOME weeks had passed since Cousin Edward had brought his exhilarating news that the book was being asked for at the libraries, and during this interval, Fanny had heard nothin...

|INDEED, I am not quite assured in my mind that the influence of Mr. Garrick upon such a family as ours is healthy,” said Mrs. Burney, when the breakfast cups had been removed a...

|FANNY BURNEY had been forced, for the first time, to make her sister aware of the fact that she knew she was looked on as the dunce of the brilliant Burney family. She could se...

|YOUNG Mr. Barlowe started so violently that he spilt his tea over his knees; for just before James had uttered his last sentence the music stopped, but as it had been somewhat...

|YOU are looking at her--I, too, have been looking at her; she is divine,” came a voice beside her. She did not need to turn to see the speaker. She had been longing for the sou...

|THE two girls left the room slowly, after sending in the direction of Fanny a glance which they meant should encourage her--a glance which should let her know that they were qu...

|FANNY was at her stepmother's elbow while Sir Joshua gave her a full account of how he had been induced to send to Lowndes for this wonderful book on the recommendation of Mrs....

|THE faithful Cousin Edward had carried the sheets of “Evelina” to Mr. Lowndes's shop, with her list of errata, sisters Lottie and Susy giving him ample instructions as to the d...

|IT had all come to her now. She had had her dreams from time to time when working at her novel--dreams of recognition--of being received on terms of equality by some of the les...

|I SUPPOSE that I must e'en follow in the wake of the womenkind,” said Lieutenant Burney, making an extremely slow move in the direction of the door, when the door had been clos...

|YOUNG Mr. Barlowe took himself very seriously, and he had every right to do so; for a more serious young man was not to be found in business in London. He had been brought up t...

|BUT little Miss Burney had recovered all her primness on the evening when, a week later, she accompanied her stepmother to partake of tea at the home of the Barlowes in the Pou...

|NO chance had Rauzzini of saying more than the most conventional words of farewell to Fanny. Mrs. Burney was beside her and her two sisters also. He yielded to his impulse to p...

|IT was, indeed, the same man who had come to consult Dr. Burney, but had not been allowed the chance of doing so by Garrick, a fortnight before--the same man, but with a marked...

|IT was on one of the last mornings in January that Mrs. Burney was reading out of the newly-arrived _London Chronicle_ such paragraphs as she thought would appeal to the varied...

“You mentioned his name; but were you discreet?” said Fanny. “I think mother felt that you were going too far when you referred to his eyes. Mother most surely believes that the...

|DR. BURNEY had given instructions that Fanny was not to be communicated with at Chessington until he had seen her; but that the third volume of the book was to be sent to Mr. C...

|A FEW days later Dr. Burney was at the point of setting out for Chessington to share Mr. Crisp's hermitage until the end of the week. He had already said good-bye to the househ...

|DOCTOR BURNEY sat for a long time staring at a point high above his wife's head. The eldest daughter, Hetty, standing at the other side of the writing-table, was radiant; her e...

“Now we can settle down to it properly, Fanny,” she cried, catching up the bundle of unstitched sheets and throwing herself back upon the little sofa. “Come beside me, dear, and...

|IT was at the Pantheon in the Oxford Road a fortnight later, that Mrs. Thrale, the brewer's lively wife, had an opportunity of shining, by a display of that _esprit_ which caus...

|SO they parted; and Lady Hales hastened back to her friends to whisper in their ears that the mystery was as good as solved: Mrs. Thrale had as much as acknowledged that she wa...

|THEY spoke in French, with an occasional phrase in Italian when they found the other tongue lacking in melody or in the exact shade of meaning that they sought to express. Edwa...

|IN the course of the morning Esther, the married daughter of the Bumey family, called at the house in St. Martin's Street. Esther, or as she was usually alluded to by her siste...

|THEN Lieutenant Burney sauntered into the room and greeted Esther; but when Fanny inquired with some eagerness what had been the result of Mr. Garrick's fooling of poor Mr. Ken...

|THE visitor walked with the short strut of the man who at least does not underrate his own importance in the world. But he suggested just at the moment the man who is extremely...