“One evening I told a story, unfortunately; for if I ever afterwards escaped to my room after five o’clock, there came a tap and a servant—‘Their Graces want you to come down again’—always from their insatiable love of stories.”
“Nov. 7, 1873, Bretton.—After three days with the dear cousins at Ravensworth, I am glad to find myself again in this pleasant house, where I have been rapturously welcomed by the children, especially by little Hubert. I have found the Motleys here. He is very agreeable; and the daughters, especially Mrs. Ives, [68] to whom her husband left £6000 a year after one month of married life, are very pleasant. Motley was shut up for a long time in his room the other day, and when he came in announced that he had just finished the preface (which was the winding up) of his new book. All the other ladies began fulsome compliments, but Miss Susie Motley, jumping up and throwing her arms round his neck, exclaimed, ‘Oh, you dear foolish old thing, how could you go and spend so much time over what you may be quite sure nobody will ever read?’ Lady Margaret has just said—
“‘Now, Mr. Hare, what do you do with your eyes(i’s)?’
“‘Dot them.’
“‘Then why don’t I dot mine? Now there is an opportunity for you to make a pretty speech.’
“‘I don’t know how.’
“‘Why, how stupid you are! Because they are capital eyes (i’s). And now, having provided thus much food for your mind, I will go and look after your body by ordering the dinner.’
“I was very sorry to leave the happy cordial party at Ravensworth of eleven young cousins, most easy to get on with certainly, though I had never seen some of them before. But, directly I arrived, one of them came forward and said, ‘Please remember, Augustus, that my name is only Nellie, and my sisters are Har and Pem and Vicky, and my cousins are,’ &c. At Lamesley Church we had the oddest sermon, with such sentences as—‘Our first father would insist upon eating sour fruit, and has set all his descendants’ teeth on edge ever since.’”
To Miss Wright.
“Highclere Castle, Nov. 12, 1873.—This is a beautiful park, with every variety of scenery, hill, valley, woods, with an undergrowth of rhododendron, a poetical lake! and is so immense—thirteen miles round—that one never goes out of it, and rather feels the isolation of the great house in the centre, which, though very handsome, is not equal to the place. Lady Carnarvon is very lovely and winning, and boundlessly interesting to listen to: one understands Mr. Delane saying that he believed that there could be no successor to Lady Palmerston till he saw Lady Carnarvon. She says that she has hitherto been too exclusive; that henceforth she shall wish to fill her house more with people of every shade—‘for Carnarvon’s sake.’ As I watch her, I am perpetually reminded of Longfellow’s lines—