136 MORE POT-POURRI 



to me was rather an uncommon print of the Duke of 

 Wellington, looking more than usually martial and 

 stand-upright, and with an extra severe thundercloud 

 behind him. It was from a picture by Lawrence, I expect, 

 and a fine thing in its way. As a pendant to this was 

 another print of a soldier. I turned to my hostess 

 and, pointing to it, said : ' Who is that ? ' My friend 

 answered with rather a marked tone : ' Why, that is Lord 

 Lyndoch,' as if most certainly I ought to have known. 

 Now, frankly, I had never heard of Lord Lyndoch, so 

 I said rather humbly and inquiringly : ' Peninsula, I 

 suppose ? But I am very badly read ; who was he ? ' And 

 then she told me : ' Why, the Grahame who went to the 

 wars after his wife's death, as you describe in your book 

 in speaking of young Mrs. Grahame's picture in the 

 Edinburgh Gallery.' She added : ' He was on Sir John 

 Moore's staff and standing close by his horse when he 

 was wounded at Corunna, and Sir John Moore was 

 carried into Mr. Grahame's tent or hut, where he shortly 

 died, and the poor young man was so utterly exhausted 

 he lay on the floor by his dead friend and slept.' She 

 told me that Lord Lyndoch was a known feature in 

 society and a visitor in country houses in her youth, and 

 she remembered him well at her grandmother's house 

 in Hertfordshire. 



December 19^. The weather has been so astonishing 

 the last few days one cannot realise it is the week, not of 

 the shortest days, but of the shortest afternoons of the 

 whole year. This sentence brought about a fearful cool- 

 ness between me and my dear secretary, who asked for 

 an explanation of the statement, and, when I tried to give 

 it, failed to understand. We agreed to refer the matter 

 to an authority that we both believed in. The next 

 day brought the following reply : ' The explanation you 

 require is, I think, hardly suited to " Pot-Pourri." I should 



