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 ol 
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 whomi 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 Erench. The portraits of 
the Duke and Duchess d’Orl^ans, 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 1 There 
I tasted for the first time “ bustard ” in a pie, like 
