Running up to me, with great eagerness, he
strained me in his embrace, and his heart was so full, that for
some minutes he could not speak. Having saluted us all round, he
perceived our uncomfortable situation, and conducting us into
another apartment, which had fire in the chimney, called for
chocolate -- Then, withdrawing, he returned with a compliment from
his wife, and, in the mean time, presented his son Harry, a
shambling, blear-eyed boy, in the habit of a hussar; very rude,
forward, and impertinent. His father would have sent him to a
boarding-school, but his mamma and aunt would not hear of his
lying out of the house; so that there was a clergyman engaged as
his tutor in the family.
As it was but just turned of twelve, and the whole house was in
commotion to prepare a formal entertainment, I foresaw it would
be late before we dined, and proposed a walk to Mr Baynard, that
we might converse together freely. In the course of this
perambulation, when I expressed some surprize that he had
returned so soon from Italy, he gave me to understand, that his
going abroad had not at all answered the purpose, for which he
left England; that although the expence of living was not so
great in Italy as at home, respect being had to the same rank of
life in both countries, it had been found necessary for him to
lift himself above his usual stile, that he might be on some
footing with the counts, marquises, and cavaliers, with whom he
kept company -- He was obliged to hire a great number of servants,
to take off a great variety of rich cloaths, and to keep a
sumptuous table for the fashionable scorocconi of the country;
who, without a consideration of this kind, would not have payed
any attention to an untitled foreigner, let his family or fortune
be ever so respectable -- Besides, Mrs Baynard was continually
surrounded by a train of expensive loungers, under the
denominations of language-masters, musicians, painters, and
ciceroni; and had actually fallen into the disease of buying
pictures and antiques upon her own judgment, which was far from
being infallible -- At length she met with an affront, which gave
her disgust to Italy, and drove her back to England with some
precipitation.
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