Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/89

 THE NOVELIST

of Miss Burney's Diary will remember her maidenly confusion when Colonel Fairly (the Honourable Stephen Digby) recommends to her a novel called "Original Love-Letters between a Lady of Quality and a Person of Inferior Station." The authoress of "Evelina" and "Cecilia"—then thirty-six years of age—is embarrassed by the glaring impropriety of this title. In vain Colonel Fairly assures her that the book contains "nothing but good sense, moral reflections, and refined ideas, clothed in the most expressive and elegant language." Fanny, though longing to read a work of such estimable character, cannot consent to borrow, or even discuss, anything so compromising as love-letters; and, with her customary coyness, murmurs a few words of denial. Colonel Fairly, however, is not easily daunted. Three days later