Poor Madame de Stael has been greatly disappointed and hurt by
the failure of the friendship and intercourse she had wished to
maintain with you,--of that I am sure; I fear, too, she is on the
point of being offended. I am not likely to be her confidant if
she is so, and only judge from the nature of things, and from her
character, and a kind of d‚pit(84) in her manner once or twice in
speaking of you. She asked me If you would accompany Mrs. Locke
back into the country? I answered that my father would not wish
to lose you for so long a time at once, as you had been absent
from him as a nurse so many days.

After a little pause, "Mais est-ce qu'une femme est en tutelle
pour la vie dans ce pays?" she said. "Il me paroit que votre
soeur est comme une demoiselle de quatorze ans."(85) I did not
oppose this idea, but enlarged rather on the constraints laid
upon females, some very unnecessarily, in England,--hoping to
lessen her d‚pit; it continued, however, visible in her
countenance, though she did not express it in words.

Page 59

[The frequency and intimacy with which Miss Burney and
M. d'Arblay now met, ripened into attachment the high esteem
which each felt for the other; and, after many struggles and
scruples, occasioned by his reduced circumstances and clouded
prospects, M. d'Arblay wrote her an offer of his hand ; candidly
acknowledging, however, the slight hope he entertained of ever
recovering the fortune he had lost by the Revolution.

At this time Miss Burney went to Chesington for a short period;