one morning the old lady was found murdered, and all her jewels and valuables were gone. Of course suspicion fell upon the maid, for who else could it be? She was taken up and tried. The evidence was insufficient to convict her, and she was released, but every one believed her guilty. Of course she could get no other place, and she was so shunned and pointed at as a murderess that her life was a burden to her.
“One day, eleven years after, the maid was walking down a street when she met a man, who, as she passed, looked suddenly at her and exclaimed, ‘Oh, la jolie jambe!’ She immediately rushed up to a sergeant-de-ville and exclaimed, ‘Arrêtez-moi cet homme.’ The man was confused and hesitated, but she continued in an agony, ‘Arrêtez-le, je vous dis: je l’accuse, je l’accuse du meurtre de ma maîtresse.’ Meanwhile the man had made off, but he was pursued and taken.
“The maid said at the trial, that, on the night of the murder, the windows of the pavilion had been open down to the ground; that they were so when she was going to bed; that as she was getting into bed she sat for a minute on its edge to admire her legs, looked at them, patted one of them complacently, and exclaimed, ‘Oh, la jolie jambe!’
“The man then confessed that while he had been hidden in the bushes of the garden waiting to commit his crime, he had seen the maid and heard her, and that, when he met her in the street, the scene and the words rushed back upon his mind so suddenly, that, as if under an irresistible impulse, his lips framed the words ‘Oh, la jolie jambe.’ The man was executed.”
Lady Herbert also told us that—
“Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, had a sheep-dog to which he was quite devoted, and which used to go out and collect his sheep. One day in winter a thick snow came on, and Hogg was in the greatest anxiety about his flocks. He called his dog and explained all the matter to him, telling him how he was going all round one side of the moors himself to drive in his sheep, and that he was to go the other way and collect. The dog understood perfectly. Late in the evening the Shepherd returned perfectly exhausted, bringing in his flock through the deep snow, but the dog had not come back. Hour after hour passed and the dog did not return. The Shepherd, who was devoted to his dog, was very anxious about it, when at last he heard a whining and scratching at the door, and going out, found the dog bringing all his sheep safe, and in its mouth a little puppy, which it laid at its master’s feet, and instantly darted off through the snow to seek another and bring it in. The poor thing had puppied in the snow, but would not on that account neglect one iota of its duty. It brought in its second puppy, laid it in its master’s lap, looked up wistfully in his face as if beseeching him to take care of it, and—died.”
Lady Marion Alford is a real grande dame. Some one, Miss Mary Boyle, I think, wrote a little book called the “Court of Queen Marion,” descriptive of her and her intimate circle. At Ford she talked much of the pleasure of Azeglio’s Ricordi, how he was the first Italian writer who had got out of the ‘conciosiachè style,’ and she was delightful with her reminiscences of Italy:—
“Once when I was spending the summer in Italy I wanted models, and I was told by an old general, a friend of mine, that I had better advertise, send up to the priests in the mountains, and tell them to send down all the prettiest children in their villages to be looked at: the lady wanted models; those she chose she should pay, the others should each have sixpence and a cake. I was told I had better prepare for a good many—perhaps a hundred might come. When the day came, I never shall forget our old servant’s face when he rushed in—‘Miladi, Miladi, the lane is full of them.’ There were seven hundred. It was very difficult to choose. We made them pass in at one door of the villa and out at the other. Those we selected we sent into the garden, and from these we chose again. Some were perfect monsters, for every mother thought her own child perfection. Those we selected to come first were a lovely family of three children with their mother. They were to come on a Wednesday. The day came, and they never appeared: the next, and still they did not come. Then we asked our old general about it, and he said, ‘The fact is, I have kicked my carpenter downstairs this morning because he said you were sending for the children to suck their blood, and they all think so.’ They none of them ever came.
“Our old maid Teresa was of a very romantic turn of mind. We used, when I was a child, to live in the Palazzo Sciarra, where the ‘Maddalena della Radice’ is. She used to stand opposite to the picture and exclaim in gulpy tones, ‘Sono bestia io, e non capisco niente, ma questo me pare—pittoresco.’ My little sister, when our father was away, stood one day at the top of the stairs and said, ‘Io son padrona di casa, e no son padrona di casa: voi siete la servitu, e non siete la servitu.’ Teresa exclaimed, ‘Questa diavola, com’ é carina.’ We used to hear Teresa talking to our other maid, and they boasted of the number of times they had been beaten by their husbands. One day—it was during the French occupation, when the bread was doled out—Teresa took her tambourine with her when she went to get it, for they all loved flirting with the soldiers; and when her husband asked her what it was for, she said it was to bring back the bread in. But when she got inside the circle of soldiers, they had a merry saltarello. The husband was kept back outside the circle, and stood there furious. At first she laughed at him, but then when he went away and came back again, she got really frightened. And when she came out of the circle he flogged her with a whip all the way back to the Trastevere, and she ran before him screaming.
“How curious it is that ‘Est locanda’ is still to be seen in Roman windows of houses to be let—the one little relic of Latin: and how odd the word for lodgings being the same in all languages—Quartier, Quartos, Quartiere, Quarter, &c.”
Lady Marion also said:—
“As we were leaving Gibraltar, three of the shells from the practising fell quite close to our yacht. ‘Are you not very much frightened?’ said a French gentleman on board. ‘Not in the least,’ I said. ‘How could I be? our men are such perfect marksmen;’ but of course I was dreadfully.”
This story is wonderfully characteristic of the speaker: the Empress Catherine might have given such an answer. About ghosts Lady Marion was very amusing:—
“When I went to Belvoir with Lady Caroline Cust, they danced in the evening. I went upstairs early, for I was tired. As I was going to my room, Lady Jersey—it was wrong of her, I think—said, ‘Oh, I see you are put into the ghost-room.’ I said, ‘I am quite happy; there are no real ghosts here, I think.’—‘Well,’ said Lady Jersey, ‘I can only say Miss Drummond slept there last night, and she received letters of importance this morning and left before breakfast.’ Well, I went into my room, and lit the candles and made up the fire, but very soon I gave a great jump, for I heard the most dreadful noise close at my elbow—Oh-o-oo-oo!’ I thought of course that it was a practical joke, and began to examine every corner of the room, thinking some one must be hidden there; then I rang my bell. When my maid came in I said, ‘Now don’t be frightened, but there is some one hidden in this room somewhere, and you must help me to find him.’ Very soon the noise came again. Then Lady Caroline came, and she heard it: then her maid came. The noise occurred about every five minutes. We examined everything and stood in each corner of the room. The noise then seemed close to each of us. At last Lady Caroline said, ‘I can stand this no longer, and I must go,’ and she and her maid went away and shut themselves into the next room. Then I said to my maid, ‘If you are frightened you had better go,’ but she protested that she would rather stay where she was; after what she had heard, anything would be better than facing the long lonely passages alone. However, just at that moment ‘Oh-o-oo-oo!’ went off again close to her ear, and with one spring she darted out of the room and ran off as hard as ever she could. I went courageously to bed and determined to brave it out. But the thing went to bed too, and went off at intervals on the pillow close to my face. And at last it grated on my nerves to such a degree that I could bear it no longer, and I dragged a mattress into Lady Caroline’s room and slept there till
