eaking likeness of
the late Lord Ironsides as a young man, but on account of the little
"B. J." in the corner.

And only the other evening I sat at dinner next to the Dowager
Countess. Heavens! what a beautiful creature she still is, with her
prematurely white hair and her long thick neck!

And after dinner we talked of Barty--she with that delightful
frankness that always characterized her through life, I am told:

"Dear Barty Josselin! how desperately in love I was with that man,
to be sure! Everybody was--he might have thrown the handkerchief as
he pleased in Riffrath, I can tell you, Sir Robert! He was the
handsomest man I ever saw, and wore a black pork-pie hat and a
little yellow Vandyck beard and mustache; just the color of Turkish
tobacco, like his hair! All that sounds odd now, doesn't it?
Fashions have changed--but not for the better! And what a figure!
and such fun he was! and always in such good spirits, poor boy! and
now he's dead, and it's one of the greatest names in all the world!
Well, if he'd thrown that handkerchief at me just about then, I
should have picked it up--and you're welcome to tell all the world
so, Sir Robert!"

* * * * *

And next day I got a kind and pretty little letter:

"Dear Sir Robert,--I was quite serious last night. Barty Josselin
was _mes premieres amours_! Whether he ever guessed it or not, I
can't say. If not, he was very obtuse! Perhaps he feared to fall,
and didn't feel fain to climb in consequence. I all but proposed to
him, in fact! Anyhow, I am proud my girlish fancy should have fallen
on such a man!

"I told him so myself only last year, and we had a good laugh over
old times; and then I told his wife, and she seemed much pleased. I
can understand his preference, and am old enough to forgive it and
laugh--although there is even now a tear in the laughter. You know
his daughter, Julia Mainwaring, is my godchild; sometimes she sings
her father's old songs to me:

"'Petit chagrin de notre enfance
Coute un soupir!'

"Do you remember?

"Poor Ironsides knew all about it when he married me, and often
declared I had amply made up to him for that and many other
things--over and over again. Il avait bien raison; and made of me a
very happy wife and a most unhappy widow.

"Put this in your book, if you like.

"Sincerely yours,