THE DREAM DUCHESS 161 



clings to the spot where for many centuries an 

 old manor-house garden once has been. Do 

 Pelhams, Morleys, Hays, and Trevors, members of 

 those families that once dwelt near, revisit old 

 haunts on twilight evenings, when bluebells make 

 a rich carpet beneath the high trees ? Surely we 

 feel them near us and only the sudden splash 

 and dart of the moorhen across the water spirits 

 them away. Does Her Grace of Newcastle drive 

 by in her stately coach, wending her way slowly 

 with a fitting retinue through the heavy chalk 

 lanes that wind along the foot of the downs from 

 Bishopstone by the sea to her fine home at Halland, 

 with its sweet-scented lime avenue ? Was it she 

 or another possessor of that name whose book- 

 plate shows a fine library interior, beneath which, 

 in flowing eighteenth-century letters with all their 

 graceful twists and rounded flourishes, are engraved 

 two words, " Given me," and after them, in her 

 own fair hand, is written in each case the name 

 of the donor. The ink has faded in many copies 

 of this ex-libris, but in most is discernible a rather 

 unformed, childish " my Lord," which follows the 

 two engraved words, showing that the Duchess 

 treasured greatly the gifts of her devoted husband. 

 Whichever Pelham lady it is whose chariot wheels 

 are heard upon stormy nights, she lives, we feel 

 sure, in more reposeful memories than the great 

 ladies of the present day. " I am bankrupt of 

 time " is an expression which, freely used by a 

 twentieth-century duchess, with hooting motor-car 

 ready to convey her to the seventh committee 

 meeting of one brief day, would not be understood 



