Читать книгу The Diary and Collected Letters of Madame D'Arblay, Frances Burney - Frances Burney - Страница 65

Sunday.—We had Mr. and Mrs. Davenant here. They are very lively and agreeable, and I like them more’ and more. Mrs. Davenant is one of the saucy women of the ton, indeed; but she has good parts, and is gay and entertaining; and her sposo, who passionately adores her, though five years her junior, is one of the best-tempered and most pleasant-charactered young men imaginable. . . .

“Mrs. Davenant is very agreeable,” said I to Mr. Crutchley, “I like her much. Don’t you?”

“Yes, very much,” said he; “she is lively and entertaining;” and then a moment after, “’Tis wonderful,” he exclaimed, “that such a thing as that can captivate a man!”

“Nay,” cried I, “nobody more, for her husband quite adores her.”

“So I find,” said he; “and Mrs. Thrale says men in general like her.”

“They certainly do,” cried I, “and all the oddity is in you who do not, not in them who do.”

“May be so,” answered he, “but it don’t do for me, indeed.”

We then came to two gates, and there I stopped short, to wait till they joined us; and Mr. Crutchley, turning about and looking at Mrs. Davenant, as she came forward, said, rather in a muttering voice, and to himself than to me, “What a thing for an attachment! No, no, it would not do for me!—too much glare! too much flippancy! too much hoop! too much gauze! too much slipper! too much neck! Oh, hide it! hide it! muffle it up! muffle it up! If it is but in a fur cloak, I am for muffling it all up!”