when Baron
William von Humboldt arrives. He writes to her next day, calling her
Mademoiselle Opie, 'no doubt from my juvenile appearance,' she adds,
writing to her father. It is indeed remarkable to read of her spirits
long after middle life, her interest and capacity for amusement. She
pays 4_l._ for a ticket to a ball given to the Duke of Wellington; she
describes this and many other masquerades and gaieties, and the blue
ball, and the pink ball, and the twenty-seven carriages at her door, and
her sight of the Emperor of Russia in her hotel. When the rest of the
ladies crowd round, eager to touch his clothes, Mrs. Opie, carried away
by the general craze, encircles his wrist with her finger and thumb.
Apart from these passing fancies, she is in delightful society.

Baron Alderson, her cousin and friend, was always kind and affectionate
to her. The pretty little story is well known of his taking her home in
her Quaker dress in the Judges' state-coach at Norwich, saying, 'Come,
Brother Opie,' as he offered her his arm to lead her to the carriage.
She used to stay at his house in London, and almost the last visit she
ever paid was to him.

One of the most interesting of her descriptions is that of her meeting
with Sir Walter Scott and with Wordsworth at a breakfast in Mount
Street, and of Sir Walter's delightful talk and animated stories. One
can imagine him laughing and describing a Cockney's terrors in the
Highlands, when the whole hunt goes galloping down the crags, as is
their North-country fashion. 'The gifted man,' says Mrs. Opie, with her
old-fashioned adjectives, 'condescended to speak to me of my "Father and
Daughter." He then went on faithfully to praise his old friend Joanna
Baillie and her tragedies, and to describe a tragedy he once thought of
writing himself. He should have had no love in it. His hero should have
been the uncle of his heroine, a sort of misanthrope, with only one
affection in his heart, love for his niece, like a solitary gleam of
sunshine lighting the dark tower of some ruined and lonely dwelling.'

'It might perhaps be a weakness,' says the Friend, long after recalling
this event, 'but I must confess how greatly I was pleased at the time.'
No wonder she was pleased that the great wizard should have liked her
novel.

It would be impossible to attempt a serious critique of Mrs. Opie's
stories. They are artless, graceful, written with an innocent good faith
which disarms criticism. That S