At length, in January, 1778, ‘Evelina’ was published. The author was informed of the event through hearing an advertisement announcing it read aloud by her step-mother at breakfast-time. Those of the party who were in the secret smiled, or blushed; those who were not suspected nothing. Several weeks elapsed before the new novel attracted much attention. Meanwhile the writer was laid up with inflammation of the lungs. On quitting her bedroom, she found that, in the circles known to her, her book was being widely read, with speculations as to its authorship. One acquaintance attributed it to Anstey, then famous for his ‘New Bath Guide;’ most voices agreed that it could not have proceeded from a woman’s pen—a conclusion which, with the usual perversity of her sex, Miss Burney regarded as a high compliment. Then the magazines commenced to speak in its praise. The _London Review_ and the _Monthly Review_ both gave favourable notices. Thus stimulated, the sale increased, till at the end of the fifth month two editions had been exhausted, and a third was fast being disposed of.[32] By May, Fanny was sufficiently recovered to leave town, and went on a long visit to Chesington, where, as she ‘could hardly walk three yards in a day at first,’ she amused herself with reading ‘Evelina’ to Daddy Crisp, and goading his curiosity by allusions to dark reports about its origin. Crisp, who, of course, suspected some mystery, was guarded in his praise, but gratified his young favourite by betraying a most uncynical eagerness for the third volume as soon as the first two had been despatched. Before long, exciting letters from home began to pour in on the convalescent at the Hall. She gives the substance of some of them in her Diary: “I received from Charlotte a letter, the most interesting that could be written to me, for it acquainted me that my dear father was at length reading my book, which has now been published six months. How this has come to pass, I am yet in the dark; but it seems ... he desired Charlotte to bring him the _Monthly Review_; she contrived to look over his shoulder as he opened it, which he did at the account of ‘Evelina; or, A Young Lady’s Entrance into the World.’ He read it with great earnestness, then put it down; and presently after snatched it up, and read it again. Doubtless his paternal heart felt some agitation for his girl in reading a review of her publication!—how he got at the name I cannot imagine. Soon after, he turned to Charlotte, and bidding her come close to him, he put his finger on the word ‘Evelina,’ and saying _she knew what it was_, bade her write down the name, and send the man to Lowndes’, as if for herself. This she did, and away went William. When William returned, he took the book from him, and the moment he was gone, opened the first volume—and opened it upon the _Ode_!”