'The selection meant in my mind that home was about to exist once
more for me.'
'In July, 1884, Mrs. Mark Pattison had been left a widow by the
death of the Rector of Lincoln College. She went to live at The
Lodge, Headington, near Oxford.
'Later in the year we became privately engaged, and told Mr. and Mrs. Frank Pattison, Mrs. Westlake, Mrs. Earle, and Mrs. Grant Duff, as well as Chamberlain, but no one else. It was decided that others should not be told until much later, and to Lord Granville, who (without mentioning a name) congratulated me, I had to feign ignorance of what he meant. Mrs. Pattison settled to go to India in February, March, or April, 1885, to stay with the Governor of Madras and Mrs. Grant Duff in the hills, and to return in September or October for our wedding, which before her departure was fixed for October. Before the return there happened Emilia's typhoid fever at Ootacamund, and our terrible misfortunes; but the date of October, 1885, was fated to remain the date, and Chamberlain, who had, before Emilia left, consented to be best man, was best man still. The place of the wedding alone was changed—from Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, to the parish church of Chelsea. Mrs. Grant Duff wrote to us on being told a most pleasant letter.
'Chamberlain wrote the best letter of his life to her.'
This was the letter:
'40, Prince's Gardens, S.W.,
'November 5th, 1884.
'My Dear Mrs. Pattison,
'Dilke has told me his great secret, and I sympathize with him so warmly in the new prospects of happiness which are opening for him that I have asked leave to write to you and to offer my hearty congratulations.
'I venture to think that we are already friends, and this adds greatly to the pleasure which this intelligence has given me.