Fanny's particular friend was a Mr. Samuel Crisp, a curious man who had once been very popular in London, but had retired to a lonely life in the country at a place called Chesington Hall. He was very fond of the Burneys and often had them visit him at his country home. Fanny called him "her dearest daddy," and loved to walk across the meadows with him, and tell him of the curious people she had met at her father's house in town. He understood her better than any one else, and it was to him that she confided the story of how she had burned the manuscript of her novel. "It was very hard, Daddy," she said. "I know I oughtn't to want to keep on scribbling, but somehow I can't help it. I think of so many things, and I want to make them real, and the only way is to put them down on paper. People tell me young ladies shouldn't be writing stories, that it's not genteel, but how can I help myself?" "You can tell them to me, Fanny, and no one shall ever know you made them up." So she unburdened her heart to him, told him of her friend Caroline Evelyn, the dear child of her brain, of the suitors that young lady had, and how she treated them, and of her elopement to Gretna Green, and of the funny people she was continually meeting. Mr. Crisp listened and smiled, surprised at the girl's powers of description and humor. Finally he said to her, "It seems to me, Fanny, that young lady's career is more interesting to you than your own." "So it is," she answered. "I think more about her than about any one else." "Then," said Mr. Crisp, "in spite of your mother's good advice and your own judgment I predict that Caroline rises in time from the flames." "Do you think so, Daddy? Oh, if she only might! It's well there's no paper and ink here or I'd begin her over again right on the spot." Mr. Crisp was right in his prediction. That summer the Burneys went to the little town of King's Lynn, where Fanny had been born. There Fanny shut herself up in a summer-house which was called "The Cabin," and began to rewrite her book. She seized upon every scrap of white paper that she could find and bore it off with her. She worked secretly, inventing numberless excuses for the hours she spent by herself. Gradually the story took shape again, changed in many ways from its first telling, and with the heroine rechristened Evelina. Meantime Dr. Burney had started to prepare his great History of Music, and asked the help of his daughters to copy it for him. Fanny wrote the best hand and was the most reliable, so her father made her his chief secretary, and day after day she worked with him, having to postpone her own book from week to week. But each time she came back to it more ardently and each time her pen flew faster as she sat at her table in the little summer-house. At last she told Susan about it, and Susan was delighted, and when Fanny read some of it to her she declared that it was a thousand times better than the story of Caroline had been.