time of the flight to Varennes, after the royal family was captured, theirs was one of the houses to which they were brought to rest and refresh on the way—for it was the custom then, when there were so few inns. M. de Langy’s mother was a staunch royalist, and when she knew that the King and Queen were coming, she prepared a beautiful little supper, everything as nice as she could, and waited upon them herself. When they were going away, the Queen, who had found it all most comfortable, said, “Où est donc la maîtresse de la maison? j’ai ête si bien ici, je voudrais la remercier avant de partir.” Madame de Langy, who was waiting, said simply, “J’étais la maîtresse de la maison avant que votre majesté y est entrée.” ’
“We went to church at Etal in the afternoon. Both there and at Ford, it being All Saints’ Day, the sermons were wholly in exaltation of the saints, church services, and salvation by works. Lady Waterford was pained by it: coming back she spoke of a simple rule of doctrine:—
‘Just before God by faith,
Just before men by works:
Just by the works of faith,
Just by the faith which works.’
In the evening she talked much of her first visit to Italy, her only visit to Rome. ‘Char. was just married then, and I was just come out: we went pour un passe-temps. We travelled in our own carriage, and the floods had carried away the bridges, and it was very difficult to get on. It was the year of the cholera, and we had to pass quarantine. My father knew a great many of the people in authority, and we hoped to get leave to pass it in one of the larger towns. Mantua was decided upon, but was eventually given up because of the unhealthiness, and we had to pass ten days at Rovigo. We arrived at last at Bologna. The people were greatly astonished at the inn when we asked if the Cardinal Legate was at home: it was as if we had asked for the Pope: and they were more astonished still the next day when he came to call upon us. We went to a party at his palace. He was Cardinal Macchi. I shall never forget that party or the very odd people we met—I see them now. The Cardinal was in despair because the theatres were closed—“Je vous aurais preté ma loge, et je vous aurais donné des glaces!” The next day Rossini came to see us—“Je suis un volcan éteint,” he said. Afterwards we went to Rome and stayed four months there. I liked the society part best—the balls at the Borgheses’ and those at the Austrian Embassy: they were great fun.’
“On Saturday we went to Norham—the Lindsays and I. Even coming from Devonshire, the interest of this country strikes one excessively. It is bare, it is even ugly, but it is strangely interesting. There is such breadth and space in the long lines and sweeping distances, amidst which an occasional peel-tower stands like a milestone of history, and there is such a character in the strange, jagged, wind-tossed, storm-stricken trees. But it became really beautiful when we descended into the lovely valley of the Tweed with all its radiant autumnal tints, and sat under the grand mass of ruin, with great flights of birds ever circling round it and crying in the still air.”
“Nov. 4.—Yesterday we went quite a round of visits, seeing different phases of Border family life. We lunched at the Hirsel (Lord Home’s)—a great Scotchy-looking house in a rather featureless park. There were two tables and an immense party at luncheon—Mr. and Lady Gertrude Rolle, Lord Romney, and others. I did not think it an interesting place, though it contains a fine portrait of Sir Walter Scott by Raeburn; but Lady Waterford delighted in the happy family life, and says whenever she sees Lord Home she is reminded of the Frenchman who said, ‘Oh, mon Dieu! pourquoi est ce qu’il n’est pas mon père?’
“We went next to Sir John Marjoribanks of Lees. He was just come in from hunting, and his wife was fishing in the Tweed. We went to her there: she was standing up at the end of a boat which a man was rowing, and the whole picture was reflected in a river so smooth that it looked as if they were floating on a mirror.
“Then we went to the Baillie Hamiltons at Lenels, another and prettier place on the Tweed near Coldstream Bridge. The house contained much that was interesting, especially two enormous Chelsea vases representing ‘Air’ and ‘Water.’ Mrs. Baillie Hamilton was a daughter of Lord Polwarth—very pleasing, and her sister came in with the most perfect manners of good-breeding, &c. Then we went to the Askews.
“Lady Waterford stopped to take our luncheon—prepared but not eaten—to a poor man in a consumption. She beguiled the way by describing her visit to Windsor, and the Queen showing her the Mausoleum.
“She talked also of the passion for jewels: that she could understand it in the case of such persons as Madame Mère, who, when remonstrated with on buying so many diamonds, said, ‘J’accumule, j’accumule,’ for it had been very useful to her. Apropos of not despising dress, she gave me the quotation from Pope’s Homer’s Odyssey[139]—
‘A dignity of dress adorns the great,
And kings draw lustre from the robe of state.’
“Last Monday, having a great deal of natural talent for singing, reciting, &c., in the castle, Lady Waterford would not keep it to herself, and asked all the village people to the school, and took her guests there to sing, &c., to them. At the end, just before ‘God save the Queen,’ she was surprised by Miss Lindsay’s ode:—
‘All hail to thee, sweet lady, all hail to thee this night,
Of all things bright and beautiful, most beautiful, most bright;
Thou art a welcome guest alike in cottage and in hall,
With a kindly word and look and smile for each one and for all.
May every blessing life can give be thine from day to day,
May health, and peace, and happiness for ever strew thy way;
May the light thou shedd’st on others be reflected on thy brow,
May a grateful people’s love and pride like a stream around thee flow,
And all our prayers unite in one upon this festive e’en,
That long thou may’st be spared to Ford, to reign its Border queen.’ ”
“Nov. 7.—Lord and Lady Warwick have been here for some days. She is so simple and genial, that the Italian word simpatica is the only one to describe her.[140]
“Yesterday, Lady Waterford, Miss Lindsay, and I had a delightful long walk across the moor and through charming relics of forest. It was a succession of pictures—long extents of moss backed by ferny hills, downy uplands breaking into red rocks, lighted here and there by the white stem of an old birch-tree, and overlooking the softest expanses of faint blue distance. We found several curious fungi. Lady Waterford said that at Balmoral
