“I should not,” said she, again looking up, “hesitate a moment.”

I was quite thunderstruck, and for some time could not say A word; but when I did speak, it was in a style of exhortation so serious and earnest, I am ashamed to write it to you, lest ’You should think it too much. 184

She gave me an attention that was even respectful, but when I urged her to tell me by what right she thought herself entitled to rush unlicensed on eternity, she said, “By the right of believing I shall be extinct.”  I really felt horror-struck.

“Where, for heaven’s sake,” I cried, “where have you picked up such dreadful reasoning?”

“In Hume,” said she; " I have read his Essays repeatedly.”

“I am sorry to find they have power to do so much mischief; you should not have read them, at least till a man equal to Hume in abilities had answered him.  Have you read any more infidel writers?”

“Yes, Bolingbroke, the divinest of all writers.”

“And do you read nothing upon the right side?”

“Yes, the bible, till I was sick to death of it, every Sunday evening to my mother.”

Have you read Beattie on the Immutability of Truth?"(126)

“No.”

“Give me leave then to recommend it to you.  After Hume’s Essays you ought to read it.  And even for lighter reading, if you were to look at Mason’s ‘Elegy on Lady Coventry,’ it might be of no disservice to you.”

This was the chief of our conversation, which indeed made an impression upon me I shall not easily get rid of.  A young and agreeable infidel is even a shocking sight, and with her romantic, flighty, and unguarded turn of mind, what could happen to her that could give surprise?

Ball-room flirtations.

Friday.-In the evening was the last ball expected to be at Bath this season, and therefore knowing we could go to no other, it was settled we should go to this.  Of our party

185

were Mrs. Byron and Augusta, Miss Philips, and Charlotte Lewis.

Mrs. Byron was placed at the upper end of the room by Mr. Tyson, because she is honourable, and her daughter next to her; I, of course, the lowest of our party; but the moment Mr. Tyson had arranged us, Augusta arose, and nothing would satisfy her but taking a seat not only next to but below me; nor could I for my life get the better of the affectionate humility with which she quite supplicated me to be content.  She was soon after followed by Captain Brisbane, a young officer who had met her in Spring Gardens, and seemed much struck with her, and was now presented to her by Mr. Tyson for her partner.

Captain Brisbane is a very pretty sort of young man, but did not much enliven us.  Soon after I perceived Captain Bouchier, who, after talking some time with Mrs. Thrale, and various parties, made up to us, and upon Augusta’s being called upon to dance a minuet, took her place, and began a very lively sort of chit-chat.