requented it. There one could meet Fuseli,
impetuous, impatient, and overflowing with conversation; Paine, somewhat
hard to draw out of his shell; Bonnycastle, Dr. George Fordyce, Mr.
George Anderson, Dr. Geddes, and a host of other prominent artists,
scientists, and literary men. Their meetings were informal. They
gathered together to talk about what interested them, and not to simper
and smirk, and give utterance to platitudes and affectations, as was the
case with the society to which Mary had lately been introduced. The
people with whom she now became acquainted were too earnest to lay undue
stress on what Herbert Spencer calls the _non-essentials_ of social
intercourse. Sincerity was more valued by them than standard forms of
politeness. When Dr. Geddes was indignant with Fuseli, he did not
disguise his feelings, but in the face of the assembled company rushed
out of the room to walk two or three times around Saint Paul's
Churchyard, and then, when his rage had diminished, to return and resume
the argument. This indifference to conventionalities, which would have
been held by the polite world to be a fault, must have seemed to Mary,
after her late experience, an incomparable virtue. It is no wonder that
Mrs. Barbauld found the evenings she spent with her publisher lively. "We
protracted them sometimes till ----" she wrote to her brother in the
course of one of her visits to London. "But I am not telling tales. Ask
---- at what time we used to separate." Mary was also a welcome guest at
Mrs. Trimmer's house, which, like that of Mr. Johnson, was a centre of
attraction for clever people. This Mrs. Trimmer had acquired some little
literary reputation, and had secured the patronage of the royal family
and the clergy. She and Mary differed greatly, both in character and
creed, but they became very good friends. "I spent a day at Mrs.
Trimmer's, and found her a truly respectable woman," was the verdict the
latter sent to Everina; nor had she ever reason to alter it. Her intimacy
with Miss Hayes also brought her into contact with many of the same
class.

As soon as she began to be known in London, she was admired. She was
young,--being only twenty-nine when she came there to live--and she was
handsome. Her face was very striking. She had a profusion of auburn hair;
her eyes were brown and beautiful, despite a slight droop in one of them;
and her complexion, as is usually the case in connection with her
Titianesque coloring