CHAPTER XXI 297
for a pencil outline . Then Georgiana produced her album . I promised to contribute a water-colour drawing : this put her at once into good humour . She proposed a walk in the grounds . Before we had been out two hours , we were deep in a confidential conversation : she had favoured me with a description of the brilliant winter she had spent in London two seasons ago -- of the admiration she had there excited -- the attention she had received ; and I even got hints of the titled conquest she had made . In the course of the afternoon and evening these hints were enlarged on : various soft conversations were reported , and sentimental scenes represented ; and , in short , a volume of a novel of fashionable life was that day improvised by her for my benefit . The communications were renewed from day to day : they always ran on the same theme -- herself , her loves , and woes . It was strange she never once adverted either to her mother ' s illness , or her brother ' s death , or the present gloomy state of the family prospects . Her mind seemed wholly taken up with reminiscences of past gaiety , and aspirations after dissipations to come . She passed about five minutes each day in her mother ' s sick-room , and no more .
Eliza still spoke little : she had evidently no time to talk . I never saw a busier person than she seemed to be ; yet it was difficult to say what she did : or rather , to discover any result of her diligence . She had an alarm to call her up early . I know not how she occupied herself before breakfast , but after that meal she divided her time into regular portions , and each hour had its allotted task . Three times a day she studied a little book , which I found , on inspection , was a Common Prayer Book . I asked her once what was the great attraction of that volume , and she said , " the Rubric ." Three hours she gave to stitching , with gold thread , the border of a square crimson cloth , almost large enough for a carpet . In answer to my inquiries after the use of this article , she informed me it was a covering for the altar of a new church lately erected near Gateshead . Two hours she devoted to her diary ; two to working by herself in the kitchen-garden ; and one to the regulation of her accounts . She seemed to want no company ; no conversation . I believe she was happy in her way : this routine sufficed for her ; and nothing annoyed her so much as the occurrence of any incident which forced her to vary its clockwork regularity .