rs. Kendal
during her recent tour in the States; and amongst the sweetly-perfumed
blossoms diamonds, pearls, and other precious gems have glistened in the
shape of ornaments. A table near the window tells you of the generosity
of the Americans. It is crowded with silver ornaments and mementos. You
may handle the diminutive silver candlesticks to light "The Kendals"
away--silver jugs, souvenir spoons, frying-pans, coffee-pots--all in
miniature. This silver dollar is only one of a hundred. You touch a
spring, when, lo and behold! the portrait of the donor appears. All
American women have dainty feet. These little ebony and silver lasts for
your boots remind you of this. On this table is a letter from the
Princess of Wales, thanking Mrs. Kendal for "the lovely silver wedding
bells and flowers which you so kindly sent me on the tenth." You may
examine George IV.'s cigar-case--a silver tube in which the King was
wont to carry a single cigar. It is impossible to number all the
treasured odds and ends, but still more difficult to total up the
miniature articles set out in a pair of cabinets.

[Illustration: NAPOLEON'S WRITING-TABLE _From a Photo by Elliott &
Fry._]

[Illustration: "SHAKESPEARE AND BACON" _From the Picture by A. E.
Emslie._]

Mrs. Kendal has a hobby--it lies in the collecting of the tiniest of
tiny things. If her intimate friends come across any curiosity
particularly choice and small, it is at once snapped up and dispatched
to Harley Street. I had some little leaden mice in my hand the size of
half-a-dozen pins' heads. Handkerchiefs an inch square, babies' woollen
shoes, pinafores, shirts, all of the tiniest, but perfectly made, with
buttons and button-holes complete, and even buns with currants no bigger
than a pin's point. Sheep, dogs, cats, monkeys, pigs, giraffes--in
short, convert the entire Zoo into miniature china knick-knacks, and you
have a considerable portion of Mrs. Kendal's collection realized. One
must needs stand for a moment at Napoleon's writing-table, near which
rests a characteristic clay by Van Beers. The pictures here are many.
Millais' work is well represented by several etchings, and a remarkably
clever thing by Emslie, entitled "Shakespeare and Bacon," suggests the
two extremes of taste to a nicety. Whilst a young enthusiast is
declaiming Shakespeare, one of his listeners--doubtless, equally
enthusiastic, but with an eye for victuals--is interrupting a soliloquy
with the remark: "No