Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/35

 Rh when we read his letter; but there is something piteous in the thought of the poor little hostess going complacently to bed that night, and never realizing that she had made her one unhappy flight to fame.

There were people, strange as it may seem, who liked Miss Benger's evenings. Miss Aikin assures us that "her circle of acquaintances extended with her reputation, and with the knowledge of her excellent qualities, and she was often enabled to assemble as guests at her humble tea-table names whose celebrity would have insured attention in the proudest salons of the metropolis." Crabb Robinson, who was a frequent visitor, used to encounter large parties of sentimental ladies; among them, Miss Porter, Miss Landon, and the "eccentric but amiable" Miss Wesley,—John Wesley's niece,—who prided herself upon being broad-minded enough to have friends of varying religions, and who, having written two unread novels, remarked complacently to Miss Edgeworth: "We sisters of the quill ought to know one another."

The formidable Lady de Crespigny of Campion Lodge was also Miss Benger's