Monday. August 1st.
This day—this month! How & where will this month end, to us?--
Tho’ Henrietta & Arabel set me a good example by going to the heath on district business,[1] at half past five in the morning, it was all in vain—I fell asleep & did not wake until eight oclock—just in time to read a chapter on early rising (the 1 cap of the 5 lib of M Antoninus) before breakfast. Will Eliza Cliffe come today? She said she wd. Shall we go to Malvern today? It is half arranged that we shall: & it was with this object, that H & A settled the district business so early. But Bummy seems to me—not to them, disinclined to go. And at any rate I may be detained at home on account of no-conveyance— “I must not be selfish”, as Mr. Boyd said,—& thrust myself into a party, in a manner which may inconvenience them.
I have written a note to Mrs. Martin to ask her to lend me Boiardo’s Orlando,[2]—which Miss Boyd asked me to lend her. I wonder what the answer will be. I hope, the book. I shall like to be able to oblige Miss Boyd. I shall like her to like me.
Mrs. Martin not at home.
Mrs. C & Eliza came to say “We can not come.”
Vexatious work à la Henriette about “who shall go to Gt Malvern”? Gained my point at last. H A & B went, & I stayed at home. They did not return until past nine; & I meanwhile was hard at work at Antoninus. Finished his 5th. book—read 7 chap: in the Bible, & then went out to walk in the dark. Frightened by a man with a coat. Jumped in at the drawing room window.
1. i.e., Wesleyan-Methodist District business, at Wellington Heath, 1 mile S.W. of Hope End.
2. Count Matteo Maria Boiardo (1434–94), whose unfinished poem Orlando Innamorato was first published in 1495.
