Fanny listened, and was struck with consternation. “The attendance,” she wrote to her dear Miss Cambridge, “was to be incessant, the confinement to the Court continual; I was scarce ever to be spared for a single visit from the palaces, nor to receive anybody but with permission; and what a life for me, who have friends so dear to me, and to whom friendship is the balm, the comfort, the very support of existence!’ It was not the sacrifice of literary prospects that alarmed her. She did not even think of ‘those distinguished men and women, the flower of all political parties, with whom she had been in the habit of mixing on terms of equal intercourse,’[69] and from whose society she would be exiled. Her mind dwelt only on the pain of being separated from her family and intimate friends: from Susan and the Lockes; from the old familiar faces at Chesington; from her sister Charlotte, now married and settled in Norfolk; from her correspondent at Twickenham. ‘I have no heart,’ she says, ‘to write to Mickleham or Norbury. I know how they will grieve: they have expected me to spend the whole summer with them.’ Good Mr. Smelt, who, in the words of Macaulay, seems to have thought that going to Court was like going to heaven, was equally surprised and mortified at the mournful reception accorded to his flattering proposals. Mrs. Delany, in whose town house they were delivered, was not less astounded. The recipient, however, had but one thought, that, which ever way her own feelings inclined, the matter must be referred to her father, as the only person entitled to decide it. Dr. Burney, as might have been anticipated, was enraptured by the honour done to his family, and the vista which, in his sanguine view, was opened before his daughter. Meanwhile, Mr. Smelt had gone down to Windsor, and brought back word that the Queen desired a personal interview with Miss Burney. Fanny had her audience, and it ended, as she foresaw must be the case, in her submission. When her Majesty said, with the most condescending softness, ‘I am sure, Miss Burney, we shall suit one another very well,’ there was nothing to be done, but to make a humble reverence, and accept. The Queen told Mrs. Delany: ‘I was led to think of Miss Burney, first by her books, then by seeing her; then by always hearing how she was loved by her friends; but chiefly by your friendship for her.’