158 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. vi. 



painting of Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of 

 Leicester dancing a saraband. . . .' 



On March 4 he tells his sisters to get their 

 ' migratory plumage into proper order for the end of 

 April. Large parties,' he continues, ' are already 

 going on. On Tuesday Mr. Gladstone's rooms were 

 crowded. I looked in there after dining with " The 

 Club," and heard a chorus and a tenor solo ; it was 

 a musical evening. I glanced at my watch to save 

 the midnight train, and meanwhile had got so 

 jammed up into a corner of a far sofa that it 

 required an exertion to drag myself between the 

 gilt legs of a heavy table and the green velvet 

 folds of the ample garment of the middle-aged 

 lady with whom I had been talking. Lady Walde- 

 grave's " early evenings " similarly crowded.' De 

 scribing a dinner at the Comte de Paris' he says : 

 ' The bride of the Comte de Paris is beautiful ; the 

 wife of the Comte d'Eu looks old, with eyes of 

 a wearied expression. He is handsomer than his 

 cousin, and will be Emperor of Brazil ; the other 

 may be King of the French. The portraits of 

 the Duke and Duchess d'Orleans, of the ex- 

 Queen and King of the French, are full of inte- 

 rest ; the furniture in the large drawing-room at 

 York House is that worked by the ladies of Paris 

 for the youthful pair — glorious flower-groups on 

 cream-coloured silk or satin ! I wish I knew the 

 French dame who sailed me in to dinner ! There 

 I tasted for the first time " bustard " in a pie, like 



