“And do you still believe the Messiah is coming, Lord Natty?”

Once when her husband went to make a political speech in the country, she telegraphed to him: 

“Mind you hit below the belt!”

She was full of nature and impulse, free, enterprising and unconcerned.  She rode as well as I did, but was not so quick to hounds nor so conscious of what was going on all round her.

One day when the Rifle Brigade was quartered at Winchester, Ribblesdale—­who was a captain—­sent Charty out hunting with old Tubb, the famous dealer, from whom he had hired her mount.  As he could not accompany her himself, he was anxious to know how her ladyship had got on; the old rascal-wanting to sell his horse—­ raised his eyes to heaven and gasped: 

“Hornamental palings!  My lord!!”

It was difficult to find a better-looking couple than Charty and Ribblesdale; I have often observed people following them in picture-galleries; and their photographs appeared in many of the London shop-windows.

My next sister, Lucy, [Footnote:  Mrs. Graham Smith, of Easton Grey, Malmesbury.] was the most talented and the best educated of the family.  She fell between two stools in her youth, because Charty and Posie were of an age to be companions and Laura and I; consequently she did not enjoy the happy childhood that we did and was mishandled by the authorities both in the nursery and the schoolroom.  When I was thirteen she made a foolish engagement, so that our real intimacy only began after her marriage.  She was my mother’s favourite child—­which none of us resented—­and, although like my father in hospitality, courage and generous giving, she had my mother’s stubborn modesty and delicacy of mind.  Her fear of hurting the feelings of others was so great that she did not tell people what she was thinking; she was truthful but not candid.  Her drawings—­both in pastel and water-colour—­her portraits, landscapes and interiors were further removed from amateur work than Laura’s piano-playing or my dancing; and, had she put her wares into the market, as we all wanted her to do years ago, she would have been a rich woman, but like all saints she was uninfluenceable.  I owe her too much to write about her:  tormented by pain and crippled by arthritis, she has shown a heroism and gaiety which command the love and respect of all who meet her.

Of my other sister, Laura, I will write later.

The boys of the family were different from the girls, though they all had charm and an excellent sense of humour.  My mother said the difference between her boys and girls came from circulation, and would add, “The Winsloes always had cold feet”; but I think it lay in temper and temperament.  They would have been less apprehensive and more serene if they had been brought up to some settled profession; and they were quite clever enough to do most things well.