Which gives the reader a specimen of female friendship.
Mr. Damer had been about half an hour with miss Courteney, when miss Woodby came to pay her a morning visit. As soon as Mrs. Eccles saw a chair set her down at the door, she flew up stairs to aquaint her noble lodger with her arrival; he instantly followed her down, and meeting miss Woodby at the bottom of the stairs, affected a joyful surprise at his good fortune in seeing her so unexpectedly again.
“The lady you are going to visit,” said he, “is engaged with company, I believe; but I am resolved you shall not go away,” pursued he, taking her hand and leading her into the parlour, “I was so charmed with your conversation the first time I saw you, that it is not probable I will lose this opportunity of renewing our acquaintance.”
“Oh! your lordship is very obliging,” said miss Woodby, suffering herself to be led into the parlour, while her transport at finding herself treated with so much gallantry, and her passionate desire of pleasing, threw her into such ridiculous affectation, that every limb and feature were distorted. Compliment, to which she was very little used, acting like strong liquors upon a weak head, she became so intoxicated, that she hardly knew what she did, which, joined to a natural aukwardness, produced the most absurd blunders in her behaviour; so that, endeavouring to trip with a lively motion to her seat, she overturned a light mahogany table that was in her way, and heard the crash of the china that was on it with very little emotion: the pleasure of shewing herself to the greatest advantage, absolutely engrossing her; and so unseasonably did she return his lordship’s polite bow, when he had seated her in her chair, that their foreheads struck against each other with a force like the concussion of two rocks; but this accident, no more than the former, disturbed miss Woodby’s enjoyment of her present happiness; and, wholly insensible to the pain of her forehead, she immediately entered into conversation with his lordship, asking him, with the liveliest air imaginable, if he had been at Ranelagh29 last night; never once making the least reflection upon what he had told her of her friend’s being engaged with company, which, as she knew her situation, might well have raised her curiosity.
The beau told her, he was not there; “but you and miss Benson were, I suppose,” added he.
“Now your lordship mentions miss Benson,” said she (without answering his question) “pray tell me how you like her; is she not very handsome?”
“Yes,” replied my lord, “she is handsome; but,” added he, looking full at her, “she wants a certain lady’s agreeable vivacity.”
“Oh! your servant, my lord,” said miss Woodby, making the application immediately; “but really, as your lordship observes, she wants vivacity; there is something heavy and lumpish in her.”
“Yet she is genteel,” said my lord. “Oh! extremely genteel,” cried miss Woodby; “but does not your lordship think she is rather too tall? being so slender as she is, does not that heighth give her a certain aukwardness?—But I really think she has one of the finest complexions in the world!”
“Has she not rather too much bloom,” said my lord. “Why, yes,” replied miss Woodby, “I think her complexion wants delicacy; but no objection can be made to her eyes, you must own, except that they are rather too large, and roll about heavily.”
“Upon the whole,” said my lord, “miss Benson is tolerable; but I perceive you are extremely fond of her by your partiality.”
“Oh, my lord,” said miss Woodby, “we are the greatest friends in the world; I conceived a violent friendship for her the first moment I saw her—You cannot imagine how ardent my friendships are.”
“That is bad news for your lover,” said my lord; “for love and friendship (the wise say) exclude each other; but I hope miss Benson makes a proper return to so much affection.”
“Oh! we are united in the strongest bands of friendship,” said miss Woodby; “the dear creature has not a thought that she conceals from me: and though I have not been aquainted with her a week, she has intrusted me with all her affairs.”
“Indeed!” said my lord, “not acquainted a week, and so communicative! are you sure, my dear miss Woodby, that this young lady is not a little silly.”
“I cannot say,” replied miss Woodby, “that her understanding is the best in the world; but she has a very good heart.”
“Your own is very good, I do not doubt,” said my lord, “which leads you to make so favourable a judgment of another’s—However, as she has laid open her affairs to you, you may, from the conduct she has avowed, collect your opinion of her.”
“Very true,” said miss Woodby; “and I do assure your lordship, that I cannot help approving of her conduct, because her motives were certainly just: though the ill-judging world may perhaps condemn her for running away from her aunt; and, from her hiding herself in a lodging, assuming another name, and such little circumstances, may take occasion to censure her, yet I am persuaded in my own mind that she is blameless.”
“Benson is not her name then,” said my lord, affecting great indifference. “Oh, no, my lord,” said miss Woodby, “her name is Courteney.—But bless me—what have I done! I hope, my lord, you will be secret; I did not intend to tell your lordship miss Benson’s true name—I would not for the world violate that friendship I have vowed to her.”
“Depend upon it, madam,” said my lord, “I will be secret as the grave. It is of no consequence to me to know her name; I shall never think of it again—But to be sure the poor girl is to be pitied—And so she ran away from her aunt; who is her aunt, pray?”
“Her aunt’s name is Meadows,” said miss Woodby, “lady Meadows; do you know her?”
“Not I,” said my lord, throwing himself into a careless posture, and humming an air as if his attention was wholly disengaged; when suddenly turning again to miss Woodby with a smile—
“Why (said he) should not you and I be as good friends as miss Benson and you are; our acquaintance is not of a much shorter date, and perhaps commenced nearly in the same manner?”
“I protest,” said miss Woodby, “and so it did; for I first saw your lordship in Mrs. Eccles’s shop, and I happened to meet miss Benson in a stage-coach about four days ago.”
“And there your acquaintance began?” said my lord; “you have improved it well since, if she has really been ingenuous enough to let you into the true state of her affairs. I suppose there is a lover in the case.”
“A lover there certainly is,” said miss Woodby; “but he was of her aunt’s chusing; and it is from this lover she fled.”
“O brave girl!” said my lord; “but is she not fled to a lover of her own chusing?” “No, I believe not,” said miss Woodby.
“Well,” said my lord, “I fancy she has deceived you, and that the gentleman who is with her now is her lover; he is a plain sort of man, Mrs. Eccles says, and looks like a merchant.”
“Oh!” said miss Woodby, “it is Mr. Damer her guardian, I suppose.” “But this is a young man,” said my lord. “Then perhaps it is her brother,” said miss Woodby, “who was abroad with a nobleman, and is now returned.”
“I think I hear him coming down stairs,” said my lord, “I have a mind to see him as he goes out.” Saying this, he bowed and ran into the shop, leaving miss Woodby a little confused at his abrupt departure; and now, for the first time, she reflected that she had been indiscreet, and revealed too much of her friend’s situation: but being incapable of taking any great interest in the concerns of another, this thought did not affect her much; her spirits had been put into such a violent flurry by my lord’s complaisant address to her, that she only considered her own satisfaction in holding him in conversation; and if he had come back to her again, she would have given him all the remaining part of miss Courteney’s history, without reflecting upon the baseness of the part she was acting, and only sensible to the pleasure of engaging the attention of a man: for, by the fatal concurrence of a disagreeable figure, and much affectation, she was generally neglected by that sex, whom she took all imaginable pains to please.
His lordship, at his going out of the room, had not otherwise taken leave of her than by a running bow, which left her some faint hopes of his return; but seeing him put on his hat and go hastily out of the shop, she concluded that he did not intend to come back: therefore she went up stairs to pay a visit to her friend, to whose account of her meeting with young Mr. Damer, and his friendly behaviour to her, she gave so little attention, her thoughts being wholly engrossed by the agreeable young nobleman, that when she left her, which was but a very short time afterwards, she scarce remembered any thing that had passed between them.