He also made me acquainted with several of the best families, and my stay in Holland was a round of drives, games and amusements.
When we had been there six months, Mr. Price wrote that everything was ready for our reception.
When we arrived in London, my husband introduced me under the name of the Marchesina di Modigliana, the name I still bear in the English Court Circular.
As it was summer, and the greater number of the best families were in the country, there were but few ladies for me to meet, amongst whom I was especially attracted by Lady Ford, and we became very intimate friends.
After spending a couple of months in the capital of the British Empire, we set forth for Wales, where Lord Newborough’s largest estates and his finest mansion, called Glynllifon, were situated. Glynllifon is about six miles from Carnarvon in North Wales, and in that town we had the most magnificent reception; the horses were taken out of the carriage, and the young men dragged us in their place. We were escorted home by six hundred men, all people or friends of milord’s. In the evening our park, as well as the town and the surrounding estates, were brilliantly illuminated and filled with a vast crowd that begged at intervals to be allowed to look at me. When I complied with their wishes, the air was rent with loud applause.
All the noble families of the neighbourhood came to call on us, and for six consecutive months it was like a perpetual fête, and we had as many as fifty guests every day.
GLYNLLIFON
FROM A DRAWING BY THE LATE SIR JOHN ARDAGH
Towards the end of the winter we went back to London, where my act of naturalization was at once set about. As my husband had arranged everything beforehand, there was no difficulty about the matter, and in less than a month the necessary preliminaries for my presentation at Court were accomplished.