Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/90

 he actually brings the volume to that virginal bower, and asks permission to read portions of it aloud, excusing his audacity with the solemn assurance that there was no person, not even his own daughter, in whose hands he would hesitate to place it. "It was now impossible to avoid saying that I should like to hear it," confesses Miss Burney. "I should seem else to doubt either his taste or his delicacy, while I have the highest opinion of both." So the book is produced, and the fair listener, bending over her needlework to hide her blushes, acknowledges it to be "moral, elegant, feeling, and rational," while lamenting that the unhappy nature of its title makes its presence a source of embarrassment.

This edifying little anecdote sheds light upon a palmy period of propriety. Miss Burney's self-consciousness, her superhuman diffidence, and the "delicious confusion" which overwhelmed her upon the most insignificant occasions, were beacon lights to her "sisters of Parnassus," to the less distinguished women who followed her brilliant lead. The passion for novel-reading was asserting itself for the first