Monday. July 25.
I finished Epictetus, & began Marcus Antoninus.
I was urged to go out in the carriage, & agreed to it; & I was afterwards asked by Bummy to call at the Bartons; not to get out but to make an enquiry about Mrs. Peyton. Agreed to that. At our gate she proposed driving to drink tea with the Cliffes. Did not agree to that. Went on to the Bartons, & there we were entreated to get out & have tea. I answered decidedly that we could not. Bummy answered in a manner that made both me & Mrs. Griffith feel convinced of her wish to do so. She pushed me visibly,—& at last said positively, that we wd. return after our drive & drink tea with them. The tears were in my eyes while Mrs. Griffith was entreating, but they fairly & foolishly started from them when we had driven from the door. And then tho’ I did not say much & not one word of reproach, & tho’ I yielded the point, Bummy’s manner was so very unkind! I told her that I had refused going even to Mr. Boyd’s. “That” appeared to her “of no consequence”. Well! we returned & had tea—made a more agreable Barton tea-drinking than usual, by Miss Glasco’s[1] conversation; And after all, on our way home & when we arrived at home, there was nothing for me but gravity & coldness & silence. After I had yielded—after I had said so little—& after that little had been extorted from me by natural, recently wounded feelings!—Oh it went to my heart. I ran up stairs, & suffered tears to do me good. And then I sate down to write a note to Mrs. Boyd in answer to her proposal about my going there today or tomorrow. If Mr. Boyd shd. hear of my having been to the Bartons, he will not think any excuse I can send him, reasonable enough not to be unkind. Henrietta came up stairs while I was thinking so; and she strongly advised me to go to Malvern tomorrow.
We went down stairs together. No smile, no word for me!--I had a hearty cry afterwards.
1. Miss Glasco was a member of the Barton Court household, probably in the office of companion to Mrs. Peyton or Mrs. Griffith, or as governess for the Peyton children. Bro referred in a letter to playing chess with her, as far back as 1821.
