Arriving at Salisbury on the 11th of June, they were reassured by information that order had been restored in London, and Lord George Gordon sent to the Tower. In London the friends parted, and Fanny returned to her father’s house. Johnson met her at Sir Joshua’s a few days after, and mention being made of a house in Grub Street that had been destroyed by the mob, proposed that they should go there together, and visit the seats of their progenitors. The latter part of this year, and part of 1781, were spent by Miss Burney chiefly in writing ‘Cecilia.’ While thus occupied she passed most of her time at Chesington. In February, 1781, she writes from that place to Mrs. Thrale: “I think I shall always hate this book, which has kept me so long away from you, as much as I shall always love ‘Evelina,’ which first _comfortably_ introduced me to you.” Shortly after the date of this letter, the writer returned home, apparently for the purpose of meeting the Thrales, who were fixed for the winter in Grosvenor Square. She found them engaged in giving parties to half London. In the midst of their entertainments Mr. Thrale died suddenly from a stroke of apoplexy. Fanny could not desert her friend in such trouble. So soon as the widow could bear any society, she summoned her young companion to Streatham, and kept her there, with hardly an interval, till the summer was over. It does not appear that Fanny was at all averse to be detained, but so long a stay was not to her advantage. Her hostess, of course, was much engrossed by the late brewer’s affairs. Dr. Johnson, as one of the executors, was similarly employed; and though Miss Burney, from time to time, saw something of him, as well as of his co-executors, Mr. Cator[50] and Mr. Crutchley,[51] she met with little in the narrowed and secluded household to compensate her for her loss of time. If she busied herself at all with ‘Cecilia’ during this period, she seems to have accomplished very little. At any rate, both her fathers became impatient of her inaction. Prompted from Chesington, Dr. Burney would have recalled his daughter, but found himself powerless against the self-willed little lady of Thrale Hall. The more resolute Crisp then took the field in person,[52] and in spite of his infirmities, repaired to Streatham, whence he carried off the captive authoress, and straightway consigned her to what he called the Doctor’s Conjuring Closet, at his own abode. There Fanny was held to her task till the beginning of 1782, when she was called home to be present at the marriage of her sister Susan to Captain Phillips; after which Dr. Burney kept her stationary in St. Martin’s Street till she had written the word ‘Finis’ on the last proof-sheet of ‘Cecilia.’ However, when the new novel was fairly in the printer’s hands, the author was again seen in London society. At a party, given by a Mrs. Paradise, she was introduced to a sister of her craft: