inner and evening at La Grange were delightful. The dining-room
is particularly charming at night. The flowers on the table, this
evening, were red, and the lights from the handsome silver candelabres
made a brilliant spot of warmth and colour against the dark panelled
walls--just shining on the armour of the fine Ormond portraits hanging
on each side of the fireplace. The talk was always easy and pleasant.

One of the guests, the naval attache to the British Embassy to France,
had been "en mission" at Madrid at the time of the Spanish Royal
marriage. The balcony of the English Embassy overlooked the spot where
the bomb was thrown. In eighty-five seconds from the time they heard
the detonation (in the first second they thought it was a salute), the
Ambassador, followed by his suite, was at the door of the royal
carriage. He said the young sovereigns looked very pale but calm; the
king, perhaps, more agitated than the Queen.

We finished the evening with music and dumb crambo--that particularly
English form of amusement, which I have never seen well done except by
English people. It always fills me with astonishment whenever I see
it. It is so at variance with the English character. They are usually
so very shy and self-conscious. One would never believe they could
throw themselves into this really childish game with so much entrain.
The performance is simple enough. Some of the company retire from the
drawing-room; those who remain choose a word--chair, hat, cat, etc.
This evening the word was "mat." We told the two actors--Mrs. P. and
the son of the house--they must act (nothing spoken) a word which
rhymed with _hat_. I will say they found it very quickly, but some of
their attempts were funny enough--really very cleverly done. It amused
me perfectly, though I must frankly confess I should have been
incapable of either acting or guessing the word. The only one I made
out was fat, when they both came in so stuffed out with pillows and
bolsters as to be almost unrecognizable. The two dogs--a beautiful
little fox-terrier and a fine collie--went nearly mad, barking and
yapping every time the couple appeared--their excitement reaching a
climax when the actors came in and stretched themselves out on each
side of the door, having finally divined the word mat. The dogs made
such frantic dashes at them that M. and Mme. de Lasteyrie had to carry
them off bodily.

The next morning I went for a walk with M. de Lasteyrie. We stro