DECEMBER 1^7 



Witloof or Large Brussels Chicory, but I mean to try 

 this next year. 



I went to lunch to-day with a neighbour, whose 

 house is full of things recalling memories which belong 

 to other days. As we sat at luncheon I began to gaze, 

 as I invariably do, at whatever hangs on the walls, and 

 I am always thankful when I have not to look at photo- 

 graphs. I have plenty of these myself, but they are the 

 least decorative of furnishing pictures. On the wall 

 opposite 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 thunder- 

 cloud 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 Lyndoeh,' as if most certainly I ought to have 

 known. Now, frankly, I had never heard of Lord 

 Lyndoeh, 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. Gra- 

 hame' 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 Lyndoeh was a known 

 feature in society and a visitor in country houses in her 

 youth, and she remembered him well at her grand- 

 mother's house in Hertfordshire. 



Vecemier 19th. — The weather has been so astonish- 



