She told me Mrs. Westaway was a “dreadful creature,” and that no one would know her, if it was not for her mother-in-law receiving her, so they can’t help it.  And she could not understand what the men saw to admire in a low person like that.  But I can see very well, Mamma, she is as pretty as can be, and probably the men don’t notice about the lace being common, and all the colours, and those things.  I must go down to dinner now, so good-bye, dear Mamma.—­Your affectionate daughter, Elizabeth.

Hazeldene Court,

Thursday, 11th August.

[Sidenote:  Lady Bobby’s Diversions]

Dearest Mamma,—­I shall be home with you almost as soon as you get this.  But I must tell you about these last two days.  The man I went in to dinner with the first night was so nice-looking, only he did not seem as if he could collect his thoughts enough to finish his sentences, and it left them sounding so silly sometimes, but I found out before we had begun the entrees that it was because Mrs. Westaway was sitting opposite, and he was gazing at her.  She looked lovely, but not like any one I have seen yet since I stayed out.  She had a diamond collar and two ropes of pearls (Jane Roose said they were imitation), and her arms quite bare and very white, but her skin must come off, because I could see a patch of white on a footman’s coat where she accidentally touched when helping herself to potatoes.  She had a huge tulle bow in her hair, and her earrings were as big as shillings.  Lady Bobby Pomeroy said afterwards in the drawing-room to Jane Roose that she should not take any more of her meals downstairs with this “creature;” and she would not have come only that Bobby insisted, as he was showing some horses, and it is convenient.  And so, do you know, Mamma, Lady Bobby has never come out of her room since, except just to go to the Horse Show, which she drove to with Mrs. Mannering in a hired fly.  I don’t call it very polite to the hostess, do you?  This afternoon she amused herself from her bedroom window by shooting at rabbits just beyond the wire fence of the lawn with a rook rifle; she did not hit any rabbits, but she got a gardener in the leg, and the man was very angry, and bled a great deal, and had to be taken away, and I think it was very careless of her, don’t you?

[Sidenote:  Two is Company]

Lord Valmond was on his way to the window seat where Jane Roose and I were sitting the first night after dinner, but Mrs. Westaway caught hold of her husband’s coat-tails as he passed and said quite loud, “Duckie, you must bring Lord Valmond and introduce him to me, we haven’t met yet, and I want to know all your friends.”  So Billy Westaway, who is as obedient as a spaniel, secured Lord Valmond, and presently we saw them comfortably tucked into a small settee together, and there they stayed all the evening.  She kept licking her lips as if he was something good to eat, and the next morning she fixed a rose in his