CHAPTER XLV 



TEMPORARY RECOVERY (1912) 



(Age 78) 



After the turn of the year Lord Avebury was 

 rather better. He writes that he came down to 

 breakfast for the first time on January 4. On the 

 24th he was able to go to the Bank, but early 

 in February he was again laid up, and passed 

 several days in bed. By the 10th he was suffi- 

 ciently recovered to attend a meeting at the 

 British Museum, and on the 28th they had a 

 dinner party. 



The constant anxiety of Lord Avebury's 

 illness was telling on Lady Avebury at this time, 

 as was not unnatural. She was never away from 

 him, and from day to day never knew how he 

 might be. His diary notes that she was too 

 unwell to appear at this dinner party, and that 

 his daughter, Mrs. Adrian Grant Duff, did hostess 

 for her. Lord Avebury admits that he found it 

 " rather an effort." 



In March he saw the Lord Mayor several 

 times about a scheme he had in hand for supply- 

 ing the poor in cities with cheap coal in winter, 

 but all these activities were paid for by an 



VOL. II 305 X 



