Page:Memoir and correspondence of Caroline Herschel (1876).djvu/56

34 Introductions to her brother's scholars led to occasional evening parties, where her voice was in demand as well for single songs as to take part in duets and glees, and one of these ladies, Mrs. Colebrook, invited her to go to London on a visit. This visit was prolonged for several weeks owing to the deep snow, which rendered the roads impassable. The Duchess of Ancaster is said to have offered any sum to have a passage cut near Devizes, but without success, her Grace was in consequence unable to be present on the 18th January, when the Queen's birthday was kept. Operas, plays, auctions, and all the usual amusements of the town, gave Miss Herschel a glimpse of the gay world; but the expense of dress and chairmen troubled her spirits too much to allow of her finding pleasure in these dissipations; and although Mrs. Colebrook is allowed to be both "learned and clever," her society does not appear to have contributed much more to her happiness than that of some younger ladies whose companionship was offered, but whose visits she did not encourage, because, as she bluntly explains, she "thought them very little better than idiots."

"The time when I could hope to receive a little more of my brother's instruction and attention was now drawing near; for after Easter, Bath becomes very empty; only a few of his scholars whose families were resident in the neighbourhood remaining. But I was greatly disappointed; for, in consequence of the harassing and fatiguing life he had led