Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan — Volume 01 by Thomas Moore
page 57 of 398 (14%)
page 57 of 398 (14%)
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many, in proportion as she became devoted to the love of one, she
adopted, early in 1772, the romantic resolution of flying secretly to France and taking refuge in a convent,--intending, at the same time, to indemnify her father, to whom she was bound till the age of 21, by the surrender to him of part of the sum which Mr. Long had settled upon her. Sheridan, who, it is probable, had been the chief adviser of her flight, was, of course, not slow in offering to be the partner of it. His sister, whom he seems to have persuaded that his conduct in this affair arose solely from a wish to serve Miss Linley, as a friend, without any design or desire to take advantage of her elopement, as a lover, not only assisted them with money out of her little fund for house-expenses, but gave them letters of introduction to a family with whom she had been acquainted at St. Quentin. On the evening appointed for their departure,--while Mr. Linley, his eldest son, and Miss Maria Linley, were engaged at a concert, from which the young Cecilia herself had been, on a plea of illness, excused,--she was conveyed by Sheridan in a sedan-chair from her father's house in the Crescent, to a post-chaise which waited for them on the London road, and in which she found a woman whom her lover had hired, as a sort of protecting Minerva, to accompany them in their flight. It will be recollected that Sheridan was at this time little more than twenty, and his companion just entering her eighteenth year. On their arrival in London, with an adroitness which was, at least, very dramatic, he introduced her to an old friend of his family, (Mr. Ewart, a respectable brandy-merchant in the city,) as a rich heiress who had consented to elope with him to the Continent;--in consequence of which the old gentleman, with many commendations of his wisdom for having given up the imprudent pursuit of Miss Linley, not only accommodated the fugitives with a passage on board a ship, which he had ready to sail |
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