Then we went to see a Mrs. Rogerson, quite highly. connected, and such a character. In ran the heartiest, most offhand little person in black silk, looking Irish rather than Scotch, which she is, greeting eagerly my companions (she is radical) and rattling away at first about horses. She seemed like some one from Miss Edgeworth's novels. “Ye may get a smacking good horse in Provence for ten pound.” She told the liveliest stories of a high-born little German niece of ten now staying with her, “the greatest gamin ye ever heard of, except meself.” This child ran outdoors, eluding all governesses, and was found in a crowd, perfectly absorbed in “Punch,” with her arm round the neck of a butcher boy who was holding her up on the curbstone, a handsome, fair-haired child, beautifully dressed. . . . She [Mrs. Rogerson] was partly brought up at the Court of Hanover, where her sister is lady-in-waiting.
Dined at a quarter of eight with the Russell Gurneys -they were at Newport with the Joint Commission. They live in the palatial part of London; superb great houses in gardens, called Palace Gardens, behind Kensington Palace, looking on Kensington Gardens. The Gurneys have lived there twenty-five years. It was quite a swell dinner party, though of nice, simple people. I sat on Mrs. Gurney's left (it was not a party for me) and on her right Mr. Howard, the great friend
