and I was getting so sleepy, that when a fresh deal was going to begin I asked Octavia, who was near, if I might not go to bed.  She nodded, so I slipped away.  Lord Valmond followed, to light my candle he said, but as there is nothing but electric light that was nonsense.  He was just beginning to say something nice, when we got beyond the carved oak screen that separates the staircase from the saloon, and there there were rows of footmen and people peeping in, so he just said “Good-night.”

[Sidenote:  A Good-night]

And I also will say good-night to you, Mamma, or I shall look ugly to-morrow for the ball.—­Love from your affectionate daughter, Elizabeth.

Foljambe Place,

16th November.

[Sidenote:  Bad Weather]

Dearest Mamma,—­I have just come up to dress for tea, but I find it is earlier than I thought, so I shall have time to tell you about to-day.  It has absolutely poured with rain and sleet and snow and blown a gale from the moment we woke this morning until now—­quite the most horrid weather I ever remember.  All the men were in such tempers, as it was impossible to shoot.  Mr. Murray-Hartley had prepared thousands of tame pheasants for them, Tom said, although this wasn’t to be a big shoot, only to amuse them by the way; and they were all looking forward to a regular slaughter.

Octavia, and I, and Lady Bobby, were among the few women down to breakfast besides our hostess, who is so bright and cheery in the morning; and when you think how morose English people are until lunch time it is a great quality.  Some of the men came down ready to start, and these were the ones in the worst humour.  After breakfast half of them disappeared to the stables, and the rest played “Bridge,” except Lord Valmond and Mr. Hodgkinson, who wanted to stay with us, only we would not have them, so we were left to ourselves more or less.

[Sidenote:  An Amusing Mistake]

Mrs. Murray-Hartley took us to see the pictures and the collections of china and miniatures; and she talks about them all just like a book, and calls them simple little things, and you would never have guessed they cost thousands, and that she had not been used to them always, until she showed us a beautiful enamel of Madame de Pompadour, and called it the Princesse de Lamballe, and said so sympathetically that it was quite too melancholy to think she had been hacked to pieces in the Revolution; only perhaps it served her right for saying “Apres moi le deluge!”.  Octavia was in fits, and I wonder no one noticed it.  Then she said she must leave us for a little in the music-room, as she always went to see her children at this hour—­they live in another wing.

[Sidenote:  Gossip]