you I think it without the least exception the cleverest thing that ever was written, and in wit far surpassing Fielding.’  Then she said as to our other books they would all sink to nothingness before yours, that they were not fit to be mentioned in the same day, and that she felt quite discouraged from writing when she thought of yours.  The whole conversation of the aunties [3] made her screech with laughing; and, in short, I can neither record nor describe all that she said; far from exaggerating it, I don’t say half enough, but I only wish you had seen the effect it produced.  I am sure you will be the first author of the age.”

[1] Lady Charlotte Campbell, her aunt, better known latterly as Lady Charlotte Bury, and celebrated for her beauty and accomplishments.

[2] Miss Mure of Caldwell.

[3] These oddities were the three Misses Edmonstone, of the Duntreath family, and old family friends, after one or whom Miss Ferrier was named.

In another letter she writes:—­

“I had an immense packet from Lady C. the other day, which I confess rather disappointed me, for I expected volumes of new compositions.  On opening it, what should it prove but your book returned? so I shall keep it safe till I see you.  She was profuse in its praises, and so was mamma, who said she was particularly taken with Lady Juliana’s brother, [1] he was so like the duke.  Lady C. said she had read it all deliberately and critically, and pronounced it capital, with a dash under it.  Lady C. begs that in your enumeration of Lady Olivia’s peccadilloes you will omit waltzes.”

[1] Lord Courtland.

That dance had just been introduced in London (1811), and the season of that year Miss Clavering spent with her aunt, Lady Charlotte, in the metropolis, in a round of gaiety, going to parties at Kensington Palace (where the Princess of Wales [1] then lived), Devonshire House, and the witty Duchess of Gordon’s, one of the “Empresses of Fashion,” as Walpole calls her. Apropos of waltzes, she writes to Miss Ferrier:—­

[1] Lady Charlotte was one of the Princess’s ladies-in-waiting.

“They are all of a sudden become so much the rage here that people meet in the morning at one another’s houses to learn them.  And they are getting on very much.  Lady Charlotte and I get great honour for the accomplishment, and I have improved a few scholars.  Clanronald [1] is grown so detestably fine.  He waltzes with me because he thinks he thereby shows off his figure, but as to speaking to me or Lady Charlotte he thinks himself much above that.  He is in much request at present because of his dancing; next to him Lord Hartington is, I think, the best dancer; he is, besides, very fond of it, and is much above being fine; I never met with a more natural, boyish creature.”

[1] Macdonald of Clanronald, a great beau in the fashionable London world.

To return to the novel.  The only portion from Miss Clavering’s pen is the history of Mrs. Douglas in the first volume, and are, as she herself remarked, “the only few pages that will be skipped.”  She further adds:—­