By what representations Dr. Burney was brought to view his daughter’s condition in its true light we are not distinctly informed. We find, however, that, before October ended, a memorial to the Queen, written by Fanny in her father’s name and her own, requesting permission for the Robe-Keeper to resign, had been approved by the Doctor, who expressed his desire that it should be presented at the first favourable opportunity. Then came a pause: the invalid was taking bark, which for a short time recruited her strength; and she cherished the hope of obtaining a ship for her brother James before she left the Court. But her hopes both for her brother and herself proved illusory. In December, her loss of health became so notorious that no part of the house could wholly avoid acknowledging it. ‘Yet,’ she writes, ‘was the terrible piquet the catastrophe of every evening, though frequent pains in my side forced me, three and four times in a game, to creep to my own room for hartshorn and for rest.’ The remaining members of the household were more considerate than the mistress of the card-table. The ladies had the fellow-feeling of fellow-sufferers; even Mr. Turbulent frankly counselled Miss Burney to retreat before it was too late. A general opinion prevailed that she was falling into a decline, and that, at best, she was reduced to a choice between her place and her life. “There seemed now,” she says, “no time to be lost; when I saw my dear father he recommended to me to be speedy, and my mother was very kind in urgency for immediate measures. I could not, however, summon courage to present my memorial; my heart always failed me, from seeing the Queen’s entire freedom from such an expectation; for though I was frequently so ill in her presence that I could hardly stand, I saw she concluded me, while life remained, inevitably hers.” Fanny’s nervousness, in fact, had made her less anxious to deliver her letter than her father was to have it delivered, and some further persuasion from him was required before the paper reached her Majesty’s hands.