XXXIX FAILING HEALTH 235 



daughter Ursula became engaged to Adrian, the 

 son of his old and lately gone friend, Sir Mount- 

 stuart Grant Duff, and the engagement was a 

 source of mixed satisfaction and sorrow to him, 

 for he writes : " Ursula has accepted Adrian 

 Grant Duff. We shall miss her terribly, but I 

 have much confidence in Adrian, and believe that 

 he will make her happy." They were married 

 on October 22, and went to Italy for the honey- 

 moon. In the meantime Lord Avebury, with 

 the elasticity of his wonderful constitution, had 

 quite regained his health, and there are many 

 entries recording golf, generally at Mitcham, in 

 the diary for this month. His illness, however, 

 had obliged him to break several engagements. 

 He had been invited to open the extended 

 building of the Liverpool Museum, and also to 

 go to York for a public function, which he had 

 to give up. He retired, at the end of the year, 

 from his directorship of the London Trust 

 Company. On the other hand, he accepted the 

 Presidency of the Sociological Society, of the 

 Royal Microscopical Society, and also of the 

 British Constitutional Association, none of which 

 involved many attendances. 



The Constitutional Association published this 

 year, as one of its leaflets, a paper by Lord 

 Avebury, On Municipal and Government Trading} 

 He remarks that in his book with the same title 

 he had endeavoured to prove (and saw no reason 

 to change his opinion) : 



1. That Local Expenditure is increasing more rapidly 

 than rateable property. 



' Municipal and National Trading, by Lord Avebury (Macmillan, 5s.). 



