“Went to the Halifax’s in the evening to meet the Indian princes, and then to Lady Lamington’s party, made exceedingly pretty by its arcaded garden on the roof.”
“Langleybury, August 2.—I am staying with Harry Loyd, who at twenty-six is certainly as near perfection as any one can possibly be in every relation of life—son, brother, friend, landlord, county magnate. His mother and four sisters live with him, and their hospitalities are boundless.”
“August 28.—Little Holmhurst has been full of summer guests—gentle Lady Donoughmore and Lady Margaret Hamilton, Lady Airlie and Lady Griselda Ogilvie, Basil Levett and his Lady Margaret, Lady Sherborne, and lastly George Jolliffe and Lady Bloomfield, the latter a constant ripple of interesting anecdote.”
“Tatton Park, Sept. 2, 1887.—The large party in this large pleasant hospitable house has included the Archbishop of Canterbury and Mrs. Benson, with their daughter—the ‘modest philosopher,’ as Miss Egerton aptly calls her. We have been to Manchester to see the exhibition of all the works of artists of Victoria’s reign—a very fine collection, from the vapid works of Etty and the hard commonplaceness of the earlier Landseers to the noble ‘Christ or Diana’ of Long, which struck most of us as the grandest and most expressive work amongst such multitudes. There is a curious contrast between the last and this Lady Egerton, who cannot enjoy life enough herself, or contribute enough to making it enjoyable for others.
“We have just been across the park to the old Hall, where a fine timber roof remains, very richly carved; and we have driven to Tabley and its old isleted hall in the lake, so mysteriously beautiful, which the family abandoned two hundred and fifty years ago, leaving all its contents in the deserted house, so that you still see the open spinnet with the mouldering keys, the lace half worked on the cushion, the flax half spun on the distaff in the little low rooms, with their carved furniture and fireplaces, opening, in two stories, around the great timbered hall.