“Lady Percy received in the gallery, and about two thousand guests were collected on the lawn. I took courage and went and talked to the Japanese ambassadress, who was very smiling, but did not say much beyond ‘Me speak leetle English and no moosh French.’”
“July 7.—Went by water with Mrs. Mostyn, Miss Monk, and Miss Milnes to Fulham. The steamer was actually two hours and a half on the way. There was an interest in recognising a whole gallery of De Wint’s sketches in the tall bosky trees, the weirs, the great water-plants, and still more on the causeway leading from Fulham Church to the palace. It was a gloriously hot day, and very pleasant sitting under the old gateway looking into the sunlit court, with full light on the rich decorations of the brickwork and the massy creepers.
“Afterwards, I was at a beautiful and charming party at Holland House. A number of grown-up royalties and a whole bevy of royal children sat under the trees watching Punch and Judy. The Prince Imperial, with charming natural manners, walked about and talked to every one he knew. I was happy in finding Lady Andover and many other friends. Towards the end, Lady Wynford said the Princess Amelie of Schleswig[206] desired that I might be presented to her, as she had read my books, &c. She is elderly, but enjoys life and dances at all the balls she is asked to, especially at Pau, of which she talked with animation.”
“July 8.—At luncheon at Lady Alwyn Compton’s I met Lady Marion Alford. There was much talk of the wills of old London citizens—how Mr. Bancroft had desired in his that for a hundred years a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine should be placed in his vault every year on the anniversary of his death, because he was convinced that before that time he should awake from his death-sleep and require it, and the hundred years had only just expired;—of how Jeremy Bentham’s body, in accordance with his will, was produced a year after his death at the feast of a club he had founded, and how all the company fled from it.
“I was afterwards at a breakfast at Lord Bute’s. There were few people I knew there, and the grass was very wet, so I sat under the verandah with the Egertons. Presently an old lady was led out there, very old, and evidently unable to walk, but with a dear beautiful face, dressed in widow’s weeds. She seemed to know no one, so gradually—I do not know how it came about—I gave her a rose, and sat down at her feet on the mat and she talked of many beautiful things. She was evidently sitting in the most peaceful waiting upon the very threshold of the heavenly kingdom. When I was going away she said, ‘I should like to know whom I have been talking to.’ I said, ‘My name is Augustus Hare.’ She said, ‘I divined that when you gave me the flower.’ I have not a notion who she was.[208]
“I dined at Sir John Lefevre’s, and was pained to see how weak and failing he looks. The Rianos were there and Sir James Lacaita, and in the evening Lady Ducie came in, radiant with goodness and beauty.”
“July 11.—A very pleasant dinner at Lord Ebury’s. He overflows with kindness. He said, ‘If this hot weather is trying for you and me, it is very good for the corn: that hardens, while we melt.’”