or to Samuel Laing as a mere verbal
description of a beautiful face is inferior to a first-class portrait.
This family enters so largely into my reminiscences and experiences, that
a chapter would hardly suffice to express all that I can recall of their
hospitality for years, of the dinners, hunts, balls, excursions, and the
many distinguished people whom I have met under their roof. It is worth
noting of Mr. Laing's daughters, that Mary, now Mrs. Kennard, is at the
head of the sporting-novel writers; that the beautiful Cecilia, now Mrs.
MacRae, was pronounced by G. H. Lewes, who was no mean judge, to be the
first amateur pianiste in England; while the charming "Floy," or Mrs.
Kennedy, is a very able painter. With their two very pretty sisters,
they formed in 1870 as brilliant, beautiful, and accomplished a quintette
as England could have produced.

One day Mr. Laing organised an excursion with a special train to Arundel
Castle. By myself at other times I found my way to Lewes and other
places rich in legendary lore. Of this latter I recall something worth
telling. Harold, the conquered Saxon king, had a son, and the conqueror
William had a daughter, Gundrada. The former became a Viking pirate, and
in his old age a monk, and was buried in a church, now a Presbyterian
chapel. There his epitaph may be read in fine bold lettering, still
distinct. That man is dear to me.

Gundrada married, died, and was buried in a church with a fine Norman
tombstone over her remains. The church was levelled with the ground, but
the slab was preserved here and there about Lewes as a relic. When the
railway was built, about 1849, there was discovered, where the church had
been, the bones of Gundrada and her husband in leaden coffins distinctly
inscribed with their names. A very beautiful Norman chapel was then
built to receive the coffins, and over them is placed the original
memorial in black marble. There is also in Lewes an archaeological
museum appropriately bestowed in an old Gothic tower. All of which
things did greatly solace me. As did also the Norman or Gothic churches
of Shoreham, Newport, the old manor of Rottingdean, and the marvellous
Devil's Dyke, which was probably a Roman fort, and from which it is said
that fifty towns or villages may be seen "far in the blue."

One day I went with my wife and two ladies to visit the latter. The
living curiosity of the place was a famous old gypsy woman named Gentilla
Cooper