My brother Jack [Footnote:  The Right Hon. H. J. Tennant] was petted and mismanaged in his youth.  He had a good figure, but his height was arrested by his being allowed, when he was a little fellow, to walk twelve to fifteen miles a day with the shooters; and, however tired he would be, he was taken out of bed to play billiards after dinner.  Leather footstools were placed one on the top of the other by a proud papa and the company made to watch this lovely little boy score big breaks; excited and exhausted, he would go to bed long after midnight, with praises singing in his ears.

“You are more like lions than sisters!” he said one day in the nursery when we snubbed him.

In making him his Parliamentary Secretary, my husband gave him his first chance; and in spite of his early training and teasing he turned his life to good account.

In the terrible years 1914, 1915 and 1916, he was Under-Secretary for War to the late Lord Kitchener and was finally made Secretary for Scotland, with a seat in the Cabinet.  Like every Tennant, he had tenderness and powers of emotion and showed much affection and generosity to his family.  He was a fine sportsman with an exceptionally good eye for games.

My brother Frank [Footnote:  Francis Tennant, of Innes.] was the artist among the boys.  He had a perfect ear for music and eye for colour and could distinguish what was beautiful in everything he saw.  He had the sweetest temper of any of us and the most humility.

In his youth he had a horrible tutor who showed him a great deal of cruelty; and this retarded his development.  One day at Glen, I saw this man knock Frank down.  Furious and indignant, I said, “You brute!” and hit him over the head with both my fists.  After he had boxed my ears, Laura protested, saying she would tell my father, whereupon he toppled her over on the floor and left the room.

When I think of our violent teachers—­both tutors and governesses —­and what the brothers learnt at Eton, I am surprised that we knew as much as we did and my parents’ helplessness bewilders me.

My eldest brother, Eddy, [Footnote:  Lord Glenconner, of Glen, Innerleithen.] though very different from me in temperament and outlook, was the one with whom I got on best.  We were both devoured by impatience and punctuality and loved being alone in the country.  He hated visiting, I enjoyed it; he detested society and I delighted in it.  My mother was not strong enough to take me to balls; and as she was sixty-three the year I came out, Eddy was by way of chaperoning me, but I can never remember him bringing me back from a single party.  We each had our latch-keys and I went home either by myself or with a partner.

We shared a secret and passionate love for our home, Glen, and knew every clump of heather and every birch and burn in the place.  Herbert Gladstone told me that, one day in India, when he and Eddy after a long day’s shooting were resting in silence on the ground, he said to him: