MIDDLETON PARK.
From photographs by the present Countess of Jersey.

My mother-in-law and her second husband, Mr. Brandling, were among our frequent visitors. Mr. Brandling had a long beard and a loud voice, and a way of flinging open the doors into the dining-room when he came in in the morning which was distinctly startling. Apart from these peculiarities he did not leave much mark in the world. He was very fond of reading, and I used to suggest to him that he might occupy himself in reviewing books, but I do not think that he had much power of concentration. My mother-in-law was tactful with him, but he had a decided temper, especially when he played whist. As I did not play, this did not affect me.

My younger sister-in-law, Caroline, and I were great friends. She had married Mr. Jenkins, who was well known as a sportsman and an amiable, genial man. His chief claim to fame, apart from his knowledge of horses and their training, was an expedition which he had made to avenge his sister’s death in Abyssinia. His sister had married a Mr. Powell and she and her husband had been murdered by natives when travelling in that country. Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Powell’s brother went to Egypt, collected followers, went into the territory where the murder had taken place, burned the village which sheltered the aggressors, and had the chief culprits handed over to them for execution. It was said that the fact that a couple of Englishmen would not leave their relatives’ death unavenged produced more effect than the whole Abyssinian expedition.

The winter after my boy’s birth Caroline lost hers, who was a few months older than mine, and was herself very ill, so we invited her and Mr. Jenkins to join us at Cannes, where we had this season taken a villa—Isola Bella. We were the first people who inhabited it. It has since been greatly enlarged and its gardens so extended that it is now one of the finest houses in the place. Even then it was very pretty and attractive, and we enjoyed ourselves greatly.

There was a quaint clergyman at that time who had known Caroline when she had been sent as a girl to HyÈres, where he then ministered, and where he had been famous for a head of hair almost too bushy to admit of being covered by a hat. He was anxious to re-claim acquaintance, but though civil she was not effusive. He was noted for paying long visits when he got into anyone’s house. I heard of one occasion on which his name was announced to a young lady who was talking to a man cousin whom she knew well. The youth on hearing the name exclaimed that he must hide, and crept under the sofa. The visitor stayed on and on till the young man could stand his cramped position no longer and suddenly appeared. The parson was quite unmoved and unmovable by the apparition of what he took to be a lover, and merely remarked “Don’t mind me!”

We found this house so charming that we sent our courier back to England to bring out our boy. My aunt, Lady Agnes, and her husband, Dr. Frank, with their baby girl, lived not far off—they had found Isola Bella for us and were pleasant neighbours. My husband, Caroline, and myself found additional occupation in Italian lessons from a fiery little patriot whose name I forget, but who had fought in the war against the Austrians. Among other things he had a lurid story about his mother whose secrets in the Confessional had been betrayed by a priest, resulting in the arrest and I believe death of a relative. After which though the lady continued her prayers she—not unnaturally—declined to make further confessions.

Our sojourn on this visit to Cannes was further brightened by Conservative triumphs in the 1874 elections. We used to sit after breakfast on a stone terrace in front of the villa, Mr. Jenkins smoking and Jersey doing crochet as a pastime—being no smoker; and morning after morning the postman would appear with English papers bringing further tidings of success.

The Jenkinses returned to England rather before ourselves—we travelled back towards the end of April in singularly hot weather, and when we reached Dover Jersey left me there for a few days to rest while he went back to Middleton. Unfortunately the journey, or something, had been too much for me, and a little girl, who only lived for a day, appeared before her time at the Lord Warden Hotel. It was a great disappointment, and I had a somewhat tedious month at the hotel before migrating to 12 Gloucester Square—the house which we had taken for the season.

I have no special recollections of that season, though I think that it was that year that I met Lord Beaconsfield at the Duke of Buccleuch’s. It is, however, impossible to fix exactly the years in which one dined in particular places and met particular people, nor is it at all important.

I would rather summarise our life in the country, where we had garden parties, cricket matches, and lawn tennis matches at which we were able to entertain our neighbours. Now, alas! the whole generation who lived near Middleton in those days has almost passed away. Our nearest neighbours were Sir Henry and Lady Dashwood at Kirtlington Park with a family of sons and daughters; Lord Valentia, who lived with his mother, Mrs. Devereux, and her husband the General at Bletchington; and the Drakes—old Mrs. Drake and her daughters at Bignell. Sir Henry’s family had long lived at Kirtlington, which is a fine house, originally built by the same architect—Smith, of Warwick—who built the new portion of Stoneleigh early in the eighteenth century. Sir Henry was a stalwart, pleasant man, and a convinced teetotaller. Later on than the year of which I speak the Dashwoods came over to see some theatricals at Middleton in which my brothers and sisters and some Cholmondeley cousins took part. After the performance they gave a pressing invitation to the performers to go over on a following day to luncheon or tea. A detachment went accordingly, and were treated with great hospitality but rather like strolling players. “Where do you act next?” and so on, till finally Sir Henry burst out: “What an amusing family yours is! Not only all of you act, but your uncle Mr. James Leigh gives temperance lectures!” Sir Henry’s son, Sir George Dashwood, had a large family of which three gallant boys lost their lives in the Great War. To universal regret he was obliged to sell Kirtlington. It was bought by Lord Leven, whose brother and heir has in turn sold it to Mr. Budgett. Not long before I married, the then owner of another neighbouring place—Sir Algernon Peyton, M.F.H., of Swift’s House, had died. Lord Valentia took the Bicester hounds which he had hunted, for a time, rented Swift’s from his widow, and ultimately did the wisest thing by marrying her (1878) and installing her at Bletchington. They are really the only remaining family of my contemporaries surviving—and, though they have occasionally let it, they do live now in their own house. They had two sons and six daughters—great friends of my children. The eldest son was killed in the Great War.

Another neighbour was a droll old man called Rochfort Clarke, who lived at a house outside Chesterton village with an old sister-in-law whose name I forget (I think Miss Byrom)—but his wife being dead he was deeply attached to her sister. Soon after our marriage he came to call, and afterwards wrote a letter to congratulate us on our happiness and to say that had it not been for the iniquitous law forbidding marriage with a deceased wife’s sister we should have seen a picture of equal domestic felicity in him and Miss ——. He was very anxious to convert Irish Roman Catholics to the ultra-Protestant faith, and he interpreted the Second Commandment to forbid all pictures of any sort or kind. None were allowed in his house. Once he wrote a letter to the papers to protest against the ritualism embodied in a picture in Chesterton Church—an extremely evangelical place where Moody and Sankey hymns prevailed. Later on the clergyman took me into the church to show me the offending idol. It consisted of a diminutive figure—as far as I could see of a man—in a very small window high up over the west door. The most appalling shock was inflicted upon him by a visit to the Exhibition of 1851, where various statuary was displayed including Gibson’s “Tinted Venus.” This impelled him to break into a song of protest of which I imperfectly recollect four lines to this effect:

“Tell me, Victoria, can that borrowed grace
Compare with Albert’s manly form and face?
And tell me, Albert, can that shameless jest
Compare with thy Victoria clothed and dressed?”

The sister-in-law died not long after I knew him, and he then married a respectable maid-servant whom he brought to see us dressed in brown silk and white gloves. Shortly afterwards he himself departed this life and the property was bought by the popular Bicester banker Mr. Tubb, who married Miss Stratton—a second cousin of mine—built a good house, from which pictures were not barred, and had four nice daughters.

I cannot name all the neighbours, but should not omit the old Warden of Merton, Mr. Marsham, who lived with his wife and sons at Caversfield. The eldest son, Charles Marsham, who succeeded to the place after his death, was a great character well known in the hunting and cricket fields. He was a good fellow with a hot temper which sometimes caused trying scenes. Towards the end of his life he developed a passion for guessing Vanity Fair acrostics, and when he saw you instead of “How d’ye do?” he greeted you with “Can you remember what begins with D and ends with F?” or words to that effect. There was a famous occasion when, as he with several others from Middleton were driving to Meet, one of my young brothers suggested some solution at which he absolutely scoffed. When the hounds threw off, however, Charlie Marsham disappeared and missed a first-class run. It was ultimately discovered that he had slipped away to a telegraph office to send off a solution embodying my brother’s suggestion!

Caversfield Church was a small building of considerable antiquity standing very close to the Squire’s house. The present Lord North, now an old man, has told me that long ago when he was Master of Hounds he passed close to this church out cub-hunting at a very early hour, when the sound of most beautiful singing came from the tower, heard not only by himself but by the huntsmen and whips who were with him—so beautiful that they paused to listen. Next time he met the clergyman, who was another Marsham son, he said to him, “What an early service you had in your church on such a day!” “I had no weekday service,” replied Mr. Marsham, and professed entire ignorance of the “angelic choir.” I have never discovered any tradition connected with Caversfield Church which should have induced angels to come and sing their morning anthem therein, but it is a pretty tale, and Lord North was convinced that he had heard this music.

One thing is certain, the tiny agricultural parish of Caversfield could not have produced songsters to chant Matins while the world at large was yet wrapped in slumber.

Thinking of Caversfield Church, I recollect attending a service there when the Bishop of Oxford (Mackarness, I believe) preached at its reopening after restoration. In the course of his sermon he remarked that there had been times when a congregation instead of thinking of the preservation and beautifying of the sacred building only considered how they should make themselves comfortable therein. This, as reported by the local representative, appeared in the Bicester paper as an episcopal comment that in former days people had neglected to make themselves comfortable in church. However, my old Archdeacon uncle-by-marriage, Lord Saye and Sele, who was a distinctly unconventional thinker, once remarked to my mother that he had always heard church compared to heaven, and as heaven was certainly the most comfortable place possible he did not see why church should not be made comfortable. The old family pew at Middleton Church had been reseated with benches to look more or less like the rest of the church before I married, but was still a little raised and separated by partitions from the rest of the congregation. Later on it was levelled and the partitions removed. From the point of view of “comfort,” and apart from all other considerations, I do think that the square “Squire’s Pew”—as it still exists at Stoneleigh—where the occupants sit facing each other—is not an ideal arrangement.

At Broughton Castle—the old Saye and Sele home—one of the bedrooms had a little window from which you could look down into the chapel belonging to the house without the effort of descending. Once when we stayed there and my mother was not dressed in time for Morning Prayers she adopted this method of sharing in the family devotions.

Broughton Castle, and Lord North’s place, Wroxton Abbey (now for sale) are both near Banbury, which is about thirteen miles from Middleton—nothing in the days of motors, but a more serious consideration when visits had to be made with horses.

Mr. Cecil Bourke was clergyman at Middleton when I married and had two very nice sisters, but he migrated to Reading about two years later, and was succeeded by the Rev. W. H. Draper, who has been there ever since. He is an excellent man who has had a good wife and eleven children. Mrs. Draper died lately, to the sorrow of her many friends. Some of the children have also gone, but others are doing good work in various parts of the Empire. Old Lord Strathnairn, of Mutiny fame, was once staying with us at Middleton. He was extremely deaf and apt to be two or three periods behind in the conversation. Someone mentioned leprosy and its causes at dinner, and after two or three remarks that subject was dropped, and another took its place, in which connection I observed that our clergyman’s wife had eleven children. Lord Strathnairn, with his mind still on “leprousy,” turned to me and in his usual courteous manner remarked, “It is not catching, I believe?”

Among other neighbours were Mr. and Mrs. Hibbert at Bucknell Manor, who had six well-behaved little daughters whom, though they treated them kindly, they regarded as quite secondary to their only son. On the other hand, Mr. and Mrs. Dewar at Cotmore were perfectly good to their four sons, but the only daughter distinctly ruled the roost. Moral: if a boy baby has any choice he had better select a family of sisters in which to be born, and the contrary advice should be tendered to a female infant.

To return to our own affairs. The little girl whom we lost in April 1874 was replaced, to our great pleasure, by another little daughter born at Middleton, October 8th, 1875, and christened Margaret like the baby who lay beneath a white marble cross in the churchyard. The new little Margaret became and has remained a constant treasure. Villiers’ first words were “Hammer, hammer,” which he picked up from hearing the constant hammering at the tank in the new water-tower. He was very pleased with his sister, but a trifle jealous of the attentions paid her by his nurse. A rather quaint incident took place at the baby’s christening. When Villiers was born, old Lord Bathurst, then aged eighty-two, asked to come and see him as he had known my husband’s great-grandmother Frances, Lady Jersey (the admired of George IV), and wanted to see the fifth generation. We asked him to stay at Middleton for the little girl’s christening, and after dinner to propose the baby’s health.

He asked her name, and when I told him “Margaret” he murmured, “What memories that brings back!” and fell into a reverie. When he rose for the toast he confided to the family that her great-grandmother on my side—Margarette, Lady Leigh—had been his first love and repeated, “Maggie Willes, Maggie Willes, how I remember her walking down the streets of Cirencester!” He was a wonderful man for falling in love—even when he was quite old he was always fascinated by the youngest available girl—but he died unmarried. Perhaps one love drove out the other before either had time to secure a firm footing in his heart.

Lord Bathurst told me that when he was a middle-aged man and friend of the family Sarah Lady Jersey was very anxious to secure Prince Nicholas Esterhazy for her eldest daughter Sarah (a marriage which came off in due course). She had asked him to stay at Middleton, and it was generally believed that if he accepted the match would be arranged. Lord Bathurst in November 1841 was riding into Oxford when he met Lady Jersey driving thence to Middleton. She put her head out of the carriage and called to him, “We have got our Prince!” At that time the Queen was expecting her second child, and Lord Bathurst, more occupied with Her Majesty’s hopes than with those of Lady Jersey, at once assumed that this meant a Prince of Wales, and rode rapidly on to announce the joyful tidings. These were almost immediately verified, and he gained credit for very early intelligence. He was a gallant old man, and despite his years climbed a fence when staying at Middleton. He died between two and three years later.

On a visit to the Exeters at Burghley, near Stamford, we had met Mr. and Mrs. Finch of Burley-on-the-Hill, near Oakham, and they asked us to stay with them soon after little Margaret’s birth. I mention this because it was here that I met Lady Galloway, who became my great friend, and with whom later on I shared many delightful experiences. She was a handsome and fascinating woman a few months younger than myself.

It was in this year, May 18th, 1875, that Disraeli wrote to Jersey offering him the appointment of Lord-in-Waiting to the Queen—saying, “I think, also, my selection would be pleasing to Her Majesty, as many members of your family have been connected with the Court.” On May 28th he notified the Queen’s approval. (It is rather quaint that the first letter begins “My dear Jersey”—the second “My dear Villiers.” My husband was never called “Villiers,” but Disraeli knew his grandfather and father, who were both so called.) Jersey used to answer for Local Government in the House of Lords. The Queen was always very kind to him, as she had known his grandmother so well, and told me once that Lady Clementina had been her playfellow. She was his godmother; she records it if I remember rightly in the Life of the Prince Consort, or anyhow in a letter or Diary of the period, and says there that she became godmother as a token of friendship to Sir Robert Peel—his mother’s father. She declared to us that she had held him in her arms at his christening, and of course it was not for us to contradict Her Majesty: but I think that she officiated by proxy. She gave him two or three of her books in which she wrote his name as “Victor Alexander,” and again we accepted the nomenclature. As a matter of fact he was “Victor Albert George” and always called “George” in the family. He had, however, the greatest respect and affection for his royal godmother, and valued her beautiful christening cup. As Lord-in-Waiting he had to attend the House of Lords when in session, and spoke occasionally—he always sat near his old friend Lord de Ros, who was a permanent Lord-in-Waiting.

I used to go fairly often to the House during the years which followed his appointment and before we went to Australia, and heard many interesting debates. Jersey and I always considered the late Duke of Argyll and the late Lord Cranbrook as two of the finest orators in the House. The Duke was really splendid, and with his fine head and hair thrown back he looked the true Highland Chieftain. Several much less effective speakers would sometimes persist in addressing the House. I remember Lord Houghton exciting much laughter on one occasion when he said of some point in his speech “and that reminds me,” he paused and repeated “and that reminds me,” but the impromptu would not spring forth till he shook his head and pulled a slip of paper, on which it was carefully written, out of his waistcoat pocket.

I was told, though I was not present, of a house-party of which the Duke of Argyll and Lord Houghton both formed part. One evening—Sunday evening, I believe—Lord Houghton offered to read to the assembled company Froude’s account of the “Pilgrimage of Grace” in his History of England. Most of them seem to have submitted more or less cheerfully, but the Duke, becoming bored, retired into the background with a book which he had taken from the table. Just when Lord Houghton had reached the most thrilling part and had lowered his voice to give due emphasis to the narrative, the Duke, who had completely forgotten what was going on, threw down his book and exclaimed, “What an extraordinary character of Nebuchadnezzar!” Whereupon Lord Houghton in turn threw down Froude and in wrathful accents cried, “One must be a Duke and a Cabinet Minister to be guilty of such rudeness!”

Froude was rather a friend of ours—a pleasant though slightly cynical man. I recollect him at Lady Derby’s one evening saying that books were objectionable; all books ought to be burnt. I ventured to suggest that he had written various books which I had read with pleasure—why did he write them if such was his opinion? He shrugged his shoulders and remarked, “Il faut vivre.” When Lady Derby told this afterwards to Lord Derby he said that I ought to have given the classic reply, “Je n’en vois pas la necessitÉ,” but perhaps this would have been going a little far.

Froude and Kingsley were brothers-in-law, having married two Misses Grenfell. On one occasion the former was giving a Rectorial Address at St. Andrews and remarked on the untrustworthiness of clerical statements. About the same time Kingsley gave a discourse at Cambridge in which he quoted a paradox of Walpole’s to the effect that whatever else is true, history is not. Some epigrammists thereupon perpetrated the following lines. I quote from memory:

“Froude informs the Scottish youth
Parsons seldom speak the truth;
While at Cambridge Kingsley cries
‘History is a pack of lies!’
Whence these judgments so malign?
A little thought will solve the mystery.
For Froude thinks Kingsley a divine
And Kingsley goes to Froude for history.”

The Galloways when we first made their acquaintance lived at 17 Upper Grosvenor Street. In 1875 we occupied 17a Great Cumberland Street—and in 1876 a nice house belonging to Mr. Bassett in Charles Street—but in 1877 we bought 3 Great Stanhope Street, being rather tired of taking houses for the season. My second (surviving) daughter Mary was born here on May 26th—a beautiful baby, god-daughter to Lady Galloway and Julia Wombwell. My third and youngest daughter, Beatrice, was born at Folkestone October 12th, 1880, and the family was completed three years later by Arthur, born November 24th, 1883, to our great joy, as it endowed us with a second son just before his elder brother went to Mr. Chignell’s school—Castlemount—at Dover.

In the same month, but just before Arthur was born, our tenant at Osterley, the old Duchess of Cleveland (Caroline), died. She was a fine old lady and an excellent tenant, caring for the house as if it had been her own. She had most generous instincts, and once when part of the stonework round the roof of Osterley had been destroyed by a storm she wrote to my husband saying that she had placed a considerable sum with his bankers to aid in its restoration. This was unexpected and certainly unsolicited, which made it all the more acceptable. We should never have thought of disturbing her during her lifetime, and even when she died our first idea was to relet the place to a suitable tenant. I had never lived there (though we once slept for a night during the Duchess’s tenure), so had no associations with, and had never realised, the beauty of, the place. However, after her death we thought we would give one garden-party before reletting, which we did in 1884. The day was perfect, and an unexpected number of guests arrived. We were fascinated with the place and decided to keep it as a “suburban” home instead of letting, and it became the joy of my life and a great pleasure to my husband.

I will speak of some of our guests later on, but I must first mention some of those whom we knew at Great Stanhope Street and Middleton during the earlier years of our married life. One of our great friends was the American Minister Mr. Lowell. Looking through some of his letters, I recall his perfect charm of manner in speaking and in writing. The simplest occurrence, such as changing the date of a dinner-party in 1882, gave him the opportunity of words which might have befitted a courtier of old days:

Before I knew Mr. Lowell personally I was introduced to his works by Mr. Tom Hughes (“Tom Brown” of the “Schooldays”) who stayed with us at Middleton at the beginning of 1880 and gave me a copy of Lowell’s poems carefully marked with those he preferred. Four years later in August Lowell stayed with us there. It was a real hot summer, and he wrote into Hughes’ gift these verses which certainly make the volume doubly precious:

“Turbid from London’s noise and smoke,
Here found I air and quiet too,
Air filtered through the beech and oak,
Quiet that nothing harsher broke
Than stockdoves’ meditative coo.
“So I turn Tory for the nonce
And find the Radical a bore
Who cannot see (thick-witted dunce!)
That what was good for people once
Must be as good for evermore.
“Sun, sink no deeper down the sky,
Nature, ne’er leave this summer mood,
Breeze, loiter thus for ever by,
Stir the dead leaf or let it lie,
Since I am happy, all is good!”

This poem was afterwards republished under the title “The Optimist” in a collection called Heartsease and Rue. Lowell added four additional stanzas between the first and the last two, elaborating the description and the underlying idea. I think, however, that the three original ones are the best, particularly the gentle hit at the “Tory”—with whom he loved to identify me. The “stockdoves” were the woodpigeons whose cooing on our lawn soothed and delighted him. Mr. Hughes told me that he had first made Mr. Lowell’s acquaintance by correspondence, having written to him to express his admiration of one of his works. I have just discovered that in an Introduction to his Collected Works published 1891 Hughes says that TrÜbner asked him in 1859 to write a preface to the English edition of the Biglow Papers which gave him the long-desired opportunity of writing to the author. He also told me—which he also describes in the Introduction—how nervous he was when about at last to meet his unknown friend lest he should not come up to the ideal which he had formed, and how overjoyed he was to find him even more delightful than his letters. In a fit of generosity Hughes, quite unasked, gave me a very interesting letter which Lowell wrote him on his appointment to England in 1880. It is a long letter, some of it dealing with private matters, but one passage may be transcribed:

Mr. Hughes records, again in the Introduction, that Lowell said in one of his letters during the American War, “We are all as cross as terriers with your kind of neutrality”—but he rejoices in the gradual increasing warmth of his feeling for England as he grew to know her better during the last years of his life.

While I knew him he was always most friendly, and it is pleasant to recall him sitting in the garden at Osterley on peaceful summer evenings enjoying specially that blue haze peculiar to the Valley of the Thames which softens without obscuring the gentle English landscape.

One more letter, including a copy of verses, I cannot resist copying. In July 1887 he endowed me with Omar KhayyÁm, and some months later I received this—dated “At sea, 2nd November 1887”:

He adds beneath the lines: “My pen has danced to the dancing of the ship.”The verses (of course not the covering letter) appeared in Heartsease and Rue.

Mr. Lowell stayed with us at Osterley in the two summers following his return. He died in America just before we went to Australia.

We knew Robert Browning pretty well, and I recollect one interesting conversation which I had with him on death and immortality. Of the former he had the rather curious idea that the soul’s last sojourn in the body was just between the eyebrows. He said that he had seen several people die, and that the last movement was there. I cannot think that a quiver of the forehead proves it. For immortality, he said that he had embodied his feelings in the “Old Pictures in Florence” in the lines ending “I have had troubles enough for one.” No one, however, can read his poems without realising his faith in the hereafter.

How diverse are the views of great men on this mystery! Lady Galloway wrote to me once from Knowsley of a talk she had had with Mr. Gladstone which I think worth recording in her own words:

I might as well insert here part of a letter from Edwin Arnold, author of The Light of Asia, which he wrote me in January 1885 after reading an article which I had perpetrated in The National Review on Buddhism. I had not known him previously, but he did me the honour to profess interest in my crude efforts and to regret what he considered a misconception of Gautama’s fundamental idea. He continues:

After this Mr. Arnold—afterwards Sir Edwin—became numbered among our friends, and was very kind in giving us introductions when we went to India, as I will record later.

Meantime I may mention a quaint bit of palmistry or thought-reading connected with him. We had a friend, Augusta Webb of Newstead, now Mrs. Fraser, who was an expert in this line. She was calling on me one day when I mentioned casually that I had met Mr. Arnold, whose Light of Asia she greatly admired. She expressed a great wish to meet him, so I said, “He is coming to dine this evening—you had better come also.” She accepted with enthusiasm. He sat next to me, and to please her I put her on his other side. In the course of dinner something was said about favourite flowers, and I exclaimed, “Augusta, tell Mr. Arnold his favourite flower.” She looked at his hand and said without hesitation, “I don’t know its name, but I think it is a white flower rather like a rose and with a very strong scent.” He remarked, astonished, “I wish I had written it down beforehand to show how right you are. It is an Indian flower.” (I forget the name, which he said he had mentioned in The Light of Asia), “white and strong-smelling and something like a tuberose.” It is impossible that Augusta could have known beforehand. Her sister told me later that she did occasionally perceive a person’s thought and that this was one of the instances.

To return to Thomas Hughes, who originally gave me Lowell’s poems. He was an enthusiast and most conscientious. On the occasion when, as I said before, he stayed at Middleton he promised to tell my boy Villiers—then six and a half years old—a story. Having been prevented from doing so, he sent the story by post, carefully written out with this charming letter:

The story itself is a variant, very picturesquely and graphically told, of an old folk-tale, which I think appears in Grimm, of a cat who, overhearing an account given by a human being of the imposing funeral of one of his race, exclaims, “Then I am King of the Cats!” and disappears up the chimney.

Tom Hughes, at the time of his visit to Middleton, was very keen about the town which he proposed to found on some kind of Christian-socialist principles, to be called “New Rugby,” in Tennessee. It was to have one church, to be used by the various denominations, and to be what is now called “Pussyfoot.” What happened about the church I know not, but I have heard as regards the teetotalism that drinks were buried by traders just outside the sacred boundaries and dug up secretly by the townsmen. Anyhow, I fear that the well-meant project resulted in a heavy loss to poor Hughes. I recollect that Lord Galloway’s servant suggested that he would like to accompany Mr. Hughes to the States—“and I would valet you, sir.” Hughes repudiated all idea of valeting, but was willing to accept the man as a comrade. All he got by his democratic offer was that the man told the other servants that Mr. Hughes did not understand real English aristocracy. Which reminds me of a pleasing definition given by the Matron of our Village Training School for Servants of the much-discussed word “gentleman.” She told me one day that her sister had asked for one of our girls as servant. As we generally sent them to rather superior situations, I hesitated, though I did not like to refuse straight off, and asked, “What is your brother-in-law?” “He is a gentleman,” was the answer. Observing that I looked somewhat surprised, the Matron hastened to add, “You see, my sister keeps a temperance hotel, and in such a case the husband does not work, only cleans the windows and boots and so on.” Whereby I gather that not to work for regular wages is the hall-mark of a gentleman! But a girl was not provided for the place.

I believe that Henry James was first introduced to us by Mr. Lowell, and became a frequent visitor afterwards. He was an intimate friend of my uncle the Dean of Hereford and of his mother-in-law Mrs. Kemble.

Under the name of Summersoft he gives a delightful description of Osterley in his novel The Lesson of the Master. “It all went together and spoke in one voice—a rich English voice of the early part of the eighteenth century.” The Gallery he calls “a cheerful upholstered avenue into the other century.”

One dinner at Norfolk House lingers specially in my memory; it was in the summer of 1880 and was to meet Dr. Newman not long after he had been promoted to the dignity of Cardinal—an honour which many people considered overdue. A large party was assembled and stood in a circle ready to receive the new “Prince of the Church,” who was conducted into the room by the Duke. As soon as he entered a somewhat ancient lady, Mrs. W— H—, who was a convert to “the Faith,” went forward and grovelled before him on her knees, kissing his hand with much effusion, and I fancy embarrassing His Eminence considerably. My aunt, the Duchess of Westminster, who was very handsome but by no means slim, was standing next to me and whispered, “Margaret, shall we have to do that? because I should never be able to get up again!” However, none of the Roman Catholics present seemed to consider such extreme genuflections necessary. I think they made some reasonable kind of curtsy as he was taken round, and then we went in to dinner. Somewhat to my surprise and certainly to my pleasure, I found myself seated next to the Cardinal and found him very attractive. I asked him whether the “Gerontius” of the poem was a real person, and he smiled and said “No,” but I think he was pleased that I had read it. I never met him again, but in October 1882 I was greatly surprised to receive a book with this charming letter written from Birmingham:

The book was Notes of a Visit to the Russian Church by Lord Selborne’s brother, Mr. W. Palmer, edited and with a Preface by Cardinal Newman. I have never been able to understand what he considered my kindness, as I thought the Great Man so kind to me, a young female heretic.