Story of My Life Part 53

"_Hallingbury, August 10, 1865._--The Archer Houblons' carriage met me at Bishop Stortford. This is a great red brick house in a large park, comfortable inside, but perfectly filled with _oggetti_--too many things. The country round is dull, except 'the forest,'

Hatfield Broadoake, which is a grand possession for a private family--eight miles of green glades, old oaks, gnarled thorn-trees, and a small lake."

"_Mainsforth, August 13._--I went to Cambridge on Friday, and saw the dear Hurstmonceaux Rectory pictures, which no one seemed to admire as we did, and the Hurstmonceaux books in Trinity College Library, where n.o.body ever reads them. I dined with the Public Orator, and the next day went to Ely.... The Cathedral is beautifully situated, a green sloping lawn with fine trees on one side, and it stands in a group of picturesque and venerable buildings--Deanery, Palace, and Grammar-school."

"_Bamborough Castle, August 19._--My mother will be well able to imagine me in this old castle: it is such a pleasure that she knows it all. As we drove up the hill, I could see dear old Mrs. Liddell sitting in her usual place in the great window of the Court-room.... I walked till dinner with Mr. Liddell on those delicious open sands, fitful gleams coming on with the sunset over Holy Island, and the sea covered with herring-boats. Mr. Liddell talked of his youth. 'The old d.u.c.h.ess of Gordon used to lead the _ton_ in my day--so exclusive it was! She took care to marry all her daughters well. With regard to their looks she said, "Give me eyes and I will supply the rest." Every one used to struggle to get into Almack's. When Lady Jersey was abroad, she heard of some "little people" being admitted, and set off home directly, saying, "I am obliged to come back to keep you all from going wrong." Lady Londonderry and Lady Jersey were rival queens, and I am afraid rejoiced in each other's misfortunes when their daughters married ill.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: BAMBOROUGH CASTLE.]

"Yesterday we went to Holy Island--Charlotte, Mrs. George Liddell, Miss Parke, and I--crossing in a boat the emerald green waves, upon which great seagulls were floating in the most bewitching manner.

We had luncheon in St. Cuthbert's Abbey, and by the time we were ready to return, the sea was like a lake, the lights most lovely in the still water, and the great castle looming against a yellow sky.

We have had a very pleasant evening since. Mr. Liddell has just been telling me of an old man at Easington who said that the Bible was like a round of beef, it was always 'coot and coom again.'"

"_Ford Cottage, August 22._--Lady Waterford had sent a kind invitation for the whole party at Bamborough to come to luncheon, so they drove with me here--sixteen miles. As we came down upon Ford all was changed. The gingerbread castle of Udolpho had marched back three centuries, and is now a grand ma.s.sive building in the Audley End style, but with older towers. The ugly village had moved away from its old site to a hillside half a mile off, and picturesque cottages now line a broad avenue, in the centre of which is a fountain with a tall pillar surmounted by an angel.

Schools for boys and girls have sprung up, a school for was.h.i.+ng, adult schools, a grand bridge of three tall arches over the dens: it is quite magical.

"The cottage is radiant--gorgeous beds of flowers, smoothly shaven miniature lawns, and large majolica vases, while raised stands of scarlet geraniums look in at the windows. Dear old Lady Stuart received us, and then Lady Waterford came in. I felt rather shy at bringing such an immense party, but I believe the visit was really welcome to her, and all the guests were completely fascinated by her beauty, her kindness, and her goodness.... The castle will be magnificent inside. The ghost room is opened and a secret staircase found at the very spot from which the ghost was said to emerge. The Bamborough party went away after tea, and we had a delightful evening, Lady Waterford singing and talking by turns. 'Here are my two little choristers,' she said, showing her last picture. 'I painted them against the gra.s.s in early spring: it has all the effect of a gold ground. They like coming to me. They are the only children who have come to me who have not been sick: after the first hour, all the others used to turn perfectly livid and say "I'm sick." It was something in the room, and having to look fixedly at one object. Lady Marion Alford says it was just the same with the children who came to her.... I have often seen skies like this in my drawing, but I suppose others don't. I asked a little schoolgirl that came to me if she had ever seen anything like it.

"No, _never_," she said.... I should like my fountain drawn either with a black cloud behind the angel or with a very deep blue sky; I have seen it both ways.... That is a sketch of a French town we went through, where the arms of the town are three owls. We asked a woman what it meant, and she said it was on account of a sermon.

Some one betted the priest that he would not bring an owl into his sermon. So he preached on Dives and Lazarus, and, after describing the end of the rich man, said "Il bou, Il bou, Il bou" (He boils, boils, boils).... When Ruskin came here, he said I would never study or take pains, so I copied a print from Van Eyck in Indian-ink; it took me several months. When I took Ruskin into my school he only said, "Well, I expected you would have done something better than that."'

"But, in spite of Ruskin, my mother would be perfectly enchanted with the schools, which are glorious. The upper part of the walls is entirely covered with large pictures, like frescoes, by Lady Waterford, of the 'Lives of Good Children'--Cain and Abel, Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his Brethren, &c., all being really portraits of the Ford children, so that little Cain and Abel sit underneath their own picture, &c. The whole place is unique.

The fountain in the centre of the village is worthy of Perugia, with its tall red granite pillar and angel figure standing out against the sky. All the cottages have their own brilliant gardens of flowers, beautiful walks have been made to wander through the wooded dene below the castle, and miles of drive on Flodden, with its wooded hill and Marmion's Well. The whole country is wild and poetical--deep wooded valleys, rugged open heaths, wind-blown pine-woods, and pale blue distances of Cheviot Hill; and Lady Waterford is just the person to live in it, gleaning up and making the most of every effect, every legend, every ballad, and reproducing them with her wonderful pencil, besides which her large income enables her to restore all the old buildings and benefit all the old people who have the good fortune to be within her reach."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SUNDIAL GARDEN, FORD.[271]]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FOUNTAIN, FORD.[272]]

"_Ford Cottage, August 24._--I have been walking in the dene to-day with Lady Stuart. She narrates very comically the effect which her two beautiful daughters produced when they came out into the world, and the way in which she saw a lady at a ball gaze at them, and then at her, and heard her say, '_How_ beautiful they are, and isn't it strange, _considering_?' Some one spoke of how Blake the artist used to go into a summer-house with Mrs. Blake, and practise for the Adam and Eve of his pictures, and how one day some visitors came, and it was very awkward. 'It would not have been so with the real Adam and Eve,' said Lady Stuart, 'for they could never dread any droppers-in.' In her anecdotes of old times and people, she is quite inexhaustible. Here are some of them:--

"'Yes, we were at George the Fourth's coronation; a great many other ladies and I went with Lady Castlereagh--she, you know, was the minister's wife--by water in one of the great state barges. We embarked at Hungerford Stairs, and we got out at a place called Cotton Garden, close to Westminster Hall. Lord Willoughby was with us. When we got out, we were looking about to see where all the ministers lived, &c., when somebody came up and whispered something to Lord Willoughby. He exclaimed "Good G.o.d!" and then, apologising for leaving us, went off in a hurry looking greatly agitated. Queen Caroline was at that moment knocking at the door of the Abbey. She had got Lady Anne Barnard, who was with her, to get her a peer's ticket, which was given her, but it was not countersigned, and they would not admit her. She was in despair. She stood on the platform and wrung her hands in a perfect agony. At last Alderman Wood, who was advising her, said, "Really your Majesty had better retire."

The people who had tickets for the Abbey, and who were to go in by that door, were all waiting and pressing for entrance, and when the Queen went away, there were no acclamations for her; the people thought she had no business to come to spoil their sport.[273]

"'She had been married twenty-five years to the King then. They offered her ?100,000 a year to stay quietly abroad, but she would come back at once and a.s.sert her rights as a queen. She died of that Coronation-day. She went home and was very ill. Then came a day on which she was to go to one of the theatres. It was placarded all about that she was to appear, and her friends tried to get up a little reaction in her favour. She insisted on going, and she was tolerably well received, but when she came home she was worse, and she died two days after.

"'The d.u.c.h.esse de Berri[274] thought of marrying George IV. after her Duke was dead. People began to talk to her about marrying again. "Oh dear, no," she said, "I shall never marry again. At least there is only one person--there is the King of England. How funny it would be to have two sons, one the King of France and the other King of England--yes, and the King of England the cadet of the two." I never had courage to tell George IV. what she said, though I might have done it. He once said to me, when his going to France was talked of, "Oh dear, no, I don't want to see them. Poor Louis XVIII., he was a friend of mine, but then he's dead; and as for Charles X., I don't want to see him. The Dauphine! yes, I pity her; and the d.u.c.h.esse de Bern, she's dreadful ugly, ain't she?" I wish I had said to him, "Yes, but she does not wish your Majesty to think so."

"'I went down one day to St. Cloud to see the d.u.c.h.esse de Berri; she had been pleased to express a wish to see me. While I was there, her son rushed in.[275] "Come now," she said, "kiss the hand of Madame l'Amba.s.sadrice. But what have you got there?" she said.

"Oh, je vous apportais mes papillons," said he, showing some b.u.t.terflies in a paper case, and then, with an air of pride, "C'est une a.s.sez belle collection." The d.u.c.h.esse laughed at them, and the boy looked so injured and hurt, that I said, "But it is a very nice collection indeed." Many years afterwards, only three years ago, Lou and I were at Venice, and we went to dine with the Chambords.

He remembered all about it, and laughed, and said, "Apr?s, je regrettais mes papillons." For it was only a fortnight after I saw them that the Revolution took place, and the family had to fly, and of course the b.u.t.terflies in their paper case were left behind in the flight. We were in the Pyrenees then, and indeed when the d.u.c.h.esse sent for me, it was because she heard I was going there, and she wished to tell me about the places she had been to, and to ask me to engage her donkey-woman.

"'When they were at Venice, the Chambords lived in one palace, a very fine one, and the d.u.c.h.esse de Berri in another farther down the ca.n.a.l, and the d.u.c.h.ess of Parma in a third. I did not see the d.u.c.h.esse de Berri, though I should have liked to have done so. She was married then to a Marchese Lucchesi, by whom she had a quant.i.ty of grown-up sons and daughters. They were dreadfully extravagant--not Lucchesi, he never was, but she was, and her sons-in-law. The Comte de Chambord paid her debts over and over again, but at last her things were obliged to be sold.

"'When we went to dine with the Chambords, we were warned that we must not allow anything to pa.s.s, or we should not get any dinner.

We went at half-past four, and the soup came, and the Duke (de Bordeaux) was talking to me at that time, and, while I was listening, the soup was carried away, and so it was with nearly everything else. The party was almost entirely composed of French exiles. Lou wrote down their names at the time, but I have forgotten them now. At seven our gondola was ordered, and it came too late, the royalties were so punctual. The Duke and d.u.c.h.ess got up, and saying, "I wish you a pleasant evening," went out, and then we had nothing for it but to go away. An old Venetian gentleman helped us out of the sc.r.a.pe, and gave us a lift home in his gondola, and very much aghast our gondoliers were when they met us in another boat upon the ca.n.a.l, while they were rowing with all their might to fetch us away. The royal family used to go in the evening to an island, which the Duke had bought for them to have exercise upon.

"'They would never do for France: they have not the manners. She is ugly,[276] and then she dresses so badly--no, she would never do.

The only one who would do out of both sets is Aumale: he is really a fine prince. The Comte de Paris would of course naturally come first, but the Duke of Orleans used to say, 'I will never be a king by anything but popular election,' and that is against his family succeeding. All the members of the family _look up_ to Aumale.

"'Did you ever hear about the old Duc de Coigny and his arm? His arm was shot during the Moscow campaign, and when it was amputated, numbers of others having their limbs taken off at the same time, he exclaimed, "Oh mon cher bras, qui m'a si bien servi, je ne puis jamais me s?parer de ce cher bras," and he insisted on its being found for him, which was highly inconvenient, and packed it up in a portmanteau, which he carried before him on horseback during the whole of the return. The soldiers quite hated that arm; however, the Duke insisted upon it. At last, as he was crossing a ford in a carriage, the portmanteau rolled off his knee on to his foot and hurt it exceedingly, upon which he was so exasperated that in a fit of rage he opened the carriage door and kicked it out into the river. When he got to his night quarters, however, the Duke was in absolute despair--"Oh mon pauvre bras! mon pauvre cher bras!" He had wished it to be buried with him; for was it not his most faithful servant? he said. However, none of the soldiers were inclined to go and fish it up for him, and since then, poor man, he has had to be buried without it.

"'The wife of this Duc de Coigny was Henrietta Dalrymple Hamilton, who brought him large estates. Her parents were miserable at her marrying a foreigner, from the idea that the estates would certainly then go out of the family; but of all his children only two daughters survive; one is Lady Manvers, and the other married Lord Stair, and thus brought back the estates to the elder branch of the Dalrymples. The Duc died last year, chiefly of grief for the death of another daughter who had married a Frenchman. His sister married Mar?chal Sebastiani and had five daughters. One of these was the murdered d.u.c.h.esse de Praslin.

"'Madame de Praslin was one of a society that there was in Paris then, who used to laugh at anything like spiritualism or warnings from another world. Madame de Rabuteau was her great friend and partisan in these opinions. One day Madame de Praslin went with her husband to Choiseul Praslin. Her room was magnificent, and she slept in a great velvet bed. In the middle of the night, she awoke with a sense of something moving in the room, and, lifting herself up in bed, saw, by the expiring embers of the fire, a figure, and as it turned, she saw, as it were, something green. She scarcely knew whether she was asleep or awake, and, to convince herself, stretched out her hand and encountered something cold, hard, and which felt like steel. Then, widely awake, she saw the figure recede and vanish out of the room. She felt a thrill of horror and began to reason with herself. "Well," she said, "I have always opposed and laughed at belief in these things, and now one of them has come to _me_. Now what can it mean? It can only mean that I am soon to die, and it has come as a warning."

"'Soon after Madame de Praslin returned to Paris, and at the house of Madame de Rabuteau she met all her former intimates. "Oh," said Madame de Rabuteau as she entered the room, "I am so glad you have come to help me to laugh at all these people, who are holding forth upon revelations from another world."--"Indeed, I think we had better talk of something else," said Madame de Praslin; "let us talk of something else."--"Why, my dear, you used to be such an ardent defender of mine," said Madame de Rabuteau, "are _you_ going over to the other side?" But Madame de Praslin resolutely refused the subject and "parlons d'autre chose" was all that could be extracted from her. When the rest of the company was gone, Madame de Rabuteau said, "Well, now, what is it? what can have come over you this evening? why do you not laugh at their manifestations?"--"Simply because I have had one myself," replied very gravely Madame de Praslin, and she told what had happened, saying that she believed it to indicate her approaching death.

Madame de Rabuteau tried to argue her out of the impression, but in vain. Madame de Praslin went home, and a few days after she was murdered in the H?tel Sebastiani.

"'When the Duke was taken, search was made, and amongst his things were found a green mask and a dagger. He had evidently intended to murder the d.u.c.h.ess at Choiseul Praslin, and it had been no spirit that she saw.

"'Madame de Feuch?res was originally a Miss Sophia Dawes, the daughter of Mr. Dawes, who was a s.h.i.+pbuilder at Ryde and a very respectable man. The Duc de Bourbon[277] saw her somewhere and took a great fancy to her, and, to facilitate an intimacy with her, he married her to his aide-de-camp, the Baron de Feuch?res. But M. de Feuch?res was a very honourable man. When the marriage was proposed to him, the Duke paying the dowry, he took her for a daughter of the Duke, and when he found out the real state of things, he separated from her at once, leaving all her fortune in her hands.

It was supposed that Madame de Feuch?res was in the Orleans interest, and that therefore the Duke would leave everything to the Duc d'Aumale. I must say for the d.u.c.h.esse de Berri that she was exceedingly good-natured about that. When there was a question about the Feuch?res being received at the palace, she advocated it, for the sake of _ma tante_,[278] and Madame de Feuch?res came. But when the Revolution took place and Charles X. fled, the feelings of the Duc de Bourbon were changed; all his loyalty was roused, and he said that he must follow _son roi_. Nothing that Madame de Feuch?res could say could change this resolution. They said that he hanged himself (August 27, 1830), immediately after hearing of the escape, but few believed it; most thought that Madame de Feuch?res had done it--unjustly perhaps, because, on arriving at an inn where they were to sleep, the Duke observed that the landlord looked very dispirited, and knowing the cause, said, "I am afraid you have had some sad trouble in your family besides all these terrible public events."--"Yes, Monseigneur," said the man, "my brother hanged himself yesterday morning."--"And how did he do that?" said the Duke. "Oh, Monseigneur, he hanged himself from the bolt of the shutter."--"No, that is impossible," said the Duke, "for the man was too tall." Then the landlord exactly described the process by which his brother had effected his purpose, raising himself upon his knees, &c., and it was precisely in that way that the body of the Duke was found in the ch?teau of St. Leu. Still most people thought that Madame de Feuch?res had murdered him in his bed, and then hung up his body to avoid suspicion.[279]

"'It was said that the Duke could not have hanged himself, because he had hurt his hand and could not use it, and so could not have tied himself up, but Lord Stuart always said that he was very thankful that his evidence was not called for, because he had met the Duke at a dinner-party a little while before, when he showed that he could use his hand by carving a large turkey beautifully.

That dinner-party was at St. Leu. Madame Adelaide had wanted to buy St. Leu, but the Duke said, "No; yet never mind; some day it will come into your family all the same." The Duke sat by Madame Adelaide at dinner and carved the turkey. "Pray do not attempt it, Monseigneur," she said, "for it will be too much for you," but he was able to do it very well.

"'In consequence of the Duke dying when he did, the Duc d'Aumale got the Cond? property. Madame de Feuch?res came to England, and her brother, Mr. Dawes, took a place for her near Highcliffe. I never called on her, but Lord Stuart did. I remember Bemister, a carpenter, being sent for by her, and coming to me afterwards. He told me, "I felt very queer when she told me to hang up a picture of the Duke on the wall of her room, and before I thought what I was about I said, 'And where will _you_ hang _he_?'"--"And what in the world did she answer?" I asked. "Well," he said, "I was looking very foolish, and she said, 'Why, you don't think I really _did_ it, do you?'"--"And what did you really think, Bemister?" I said.

"Why, I don't think she _did_ it," answered Bemister, "but I think she worrited of him into doing it himself," and I suspect this was pretty near the truth.'

"I sleep at the castle, and at 10 A.M. go down to the cottage, which looks radiant in its bowers of flowers and shrubs, with a little burn tossing in front. Lady Waterford reads the lessons and prayers to the household (having already been to church herself).

Then comes breakfast in the miniature dining-room opening into the miniature garden, during which she talks ceaselessly in her wonderfully poetical way. Then I sit a little with Lady Stuart--then draw, while Lady Waterford has her choristers and other boy models to sit to her. At two is luncheon, then we go out, Lady Stuart in a donkey-chair. Yesterday we went all over Flodden; to-day we are going to Yetholm, the gipsy capital. At half-past seven we dine, then Lady Waterford paints, while I tell them stories, or _anything_, for they like to hear everything, and then Lady Waterford sings, and tells me charming things in return. Here are some s.n.a.t.c.hes from her:--

"'I wish you had seen Grandmama Hardwicke.[280] She was such a beautiful old lady--very little, and with the loveliest skin, and eyes, and hair; and she had such beautiful manners, so graceful and so gracious. Grandmama lived till she was ninety-five. She died in '58. I have two oak-trees in the upper part of the pleasaunce which were planted by her. When she was in her great age, all her grandchildren thought they would like to have oak-trees planted by her, and so a row of pots was placed in the window-sill, and her chair was wheeled up to it, to make it as little fatigue as possible, and she dropped an acorn into each of the pots. Her old maid, Maydwell, who perfectly doted upon her, and was always afraid of her overdoing herself, stood by with a gla.s.s of port wine and a biscuit, and when she had finished her work, she took the wine, and pa.s.sing it before the pots, said, "Success to the oak-trees,"

and drank it. I am always so sorry that Ludovic Lindsay (Lord Lindsay's eldest boy) should not have seen her. Lord Lindsay wished it: he wished to have carried on further the recollection of a person whose grandfather's wife was given away by Charles the Second; but it was Maydwell who prevented it, I believe, because she was too proud of her mistress, and did not think her looking quite so well then as she had looked some years before. The fact was, I think, that some of the little Stuarts had been taken to see her, and as they were going out they had been heard to say, "How _awfully_ old she looks."

"'Her father, Lord Balcarres, was what they call "out in the '45,"

and his man was called on to swear that he had not been present at a time when he was. The man swore it and Lord Balcarres got off.

When they were going away safe he said to his man, "Well now, how _could_ you swear such a lie!"--"Because I had rather trust my sowle to G.o.d," said the man, "than your body to deevils." The first wife of Lord Balcarres's father[281] was Mauritia of Na.s.sau, who was given away by Charles II. When they came to the altar, the bridegroom found that he had totally forgotten the ring. In a great fright he asked if one of the bystanders could lend him a ring, and a friend gave him one. He did not find out then that it bore the device of a death's-head and cross-bones, but Mauritia of Na.s.sau found it out afterwards: she considered it a prophecy of evil, and she died within the year.

"'When he was almost an old man, Lord Balcarres went to stay with old Lady Keith. There were a quant.i.ty of young ladies in the house, and before he came Lady Keith said, "Now there is this old gentleman coming to stay, and I particularly wish that you should all endeavour to make yourselves as pleasant to him as you can."

They all agreed, but a Miss Dalrymple[282] said, "Well, you may all do what you like, but I'll bet you anything you please that I'll make him like me the best of all of us," and so she did; she made him exclusively devoted to her all the while he was there; but she never thought of anything more than this, and when he asked her to marry him, she laughed at the very idea. He was exceedingly crestfallen, but when he went away he made a will settling everything he possessed upon this Miss Dalrymple. Somehow she heard of this, and said, "Well then, after all, he must really care for me, and I _will_ marry him," and she did. He was fifty-eight then, but they had eleven children. When Lady Balcarres was an old woman, she was excessively severe, indeed she became so soon after her marriage. One day some one coming along the road towards her house met a perfect procession of children of all ages, from three upwards, walking one behind the other, and the eldest boy, who came first, gipsy fas.h.i.+on carrying the baby on his back. They were the eleven children of Lady Balcarres making their escape from their mother, with the intention of going out to seek their own fortunes in the world. It was one of the family of this Lady Balcarres who was the original of Lucy Ashton in the "Bride of Lammermoor." The story is all true. The Master of Ravenswood was Lord Rutherford.

She rode to church on a pillion behind her brother that he might not feel how her heart was beating.

"'In consequence of Grandmama Hardwicke's great age, people used to be astonished at my aunt Lady Mexborough, when nearly eighty, running upstairs and calling out 'Mama.' When my aunt Lady Somers was at Bath, she sent for a doctor, and he said to her, "Well, my lady, at _your_ age, you cannot expect to be ever much better."--"At _my_ age!" she said, "why, my mother only died last year." The doctor was perfectly petrified with amazement. "It is the most wonderful thing," he said, "that I ever heard in my life."

My grandmother's sisters were very remarkable women; one was Lady Margaret Lindsay, the other was Lady Anne Barnard. Lady Anne was the real auth.o.r.ess of "Auld Robin Gray." She loved the tune,[283]

but the original words were bad and unfit for a lady to sing, so she wrote, "Auld Robin Gray," though some one else has always had the credit of it.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: FORD CASTLE, THE TERRACE.[284]]

"We have been walking this afternoon through the cornfields towards Etal. Lady Waterford recalled how Lady Marion Alford had shown her that all the sheaves leaning towards one another were like hands praying. To-night Mr. Williams dined at the cottage. Asking Lady Waterford about him afterwards, she said:--

"'I do not know if Mr. Williams is old or young. I think he is like the French lady of whom it was said, "Elle n'avait pas encore perdu l'ancienne habitude d'?tre jeune." Apropos of this, Lady Gifford made such a pretty speech once. A little girl asked her, "Do tell me, are you old or young? I never _can_ make out," and she said, "My dear, I have been a very long time young."

"'The story of Mr. Williams is quite a pretty one. When Lord Frederick FitzClarence was in India, there was a great scandal in his government, and two of his aides-de-camp had to be sent away.

He wrote to his brother-in-law to send him out another in a hurry, and he sent Mr. Williams. When he arrived, Lord Frederick was very ill, and soon after he died. After his death, Mr. Williams had the task of bringing Lady Frederick and her daughter home. Miss FitzClarence was then very much out of health, and he used to carry her up on deck, and they were thrown very much together. I believe the maids warned Lady Frederick that something might come of it, but she did not see it. Before the end of the voyage, Mr. Williams and Miss FitzClarence had determined to be married, but she decided not to tell her mother as yet. When the s.h.i.+p arrived at Portsmouth, the coffin of Lord Frederick had to remain all night on the deck, and Mr. Williams never left it, but walked up and down the whole time watching it, which touched Lady Frederick very much. Still, when her daughter told her she was going to marry him, she was quite furious, contrary to her usual disposition, which is an exceedingly mild one, and she would not hear of it, and sent him away at once.

"'It was the time of the war, and Captain Williams went off to the Crimea, but Miss FitzClarence grew worse and worse, and at last the difference between them made her so uncomfortable with her mother, that she went off to her grandmother; but while there she continued to get worse, and at last it was evidently a case of dying, and when her mother went to her, she was so alarmed that she begged she would marry any one she liked; she would consent to whatever she wished, and would send for Captain Williams at once.