eodora
married, when Uncle Leopold went to Belgium, the Baroness was left
without a competitor. The Princess gave her mother her dutiful regards;
but Lehzen had her heart. The voluble, shrewd daughter of the pastor
in Hanover, lavishing her devotion on her royal charge, had reaped her
reward in an unbounded confidence and a passionate adoration. The girl
would have gone through fire for her "PRECIOUS Lehzen," the "best and
truest friend," she declared, that she had had since her birth. Her
journal, begun when she was thirteen, where she registered day by day
the small succession of her doings and her sentiments, bears on every
page of it the traces of the Baroness and her circumambient influence.
The young creature that one sees there, self-depicted in ingenuous
clarity, with her sincerity, her simplicity, her quick affections and
pious resolutions, might almost have been the daughter of a German
pastor herself. Her enjoyments, her admirations, her engouements were
of the kind that clothed themselves naturally in underlinings and
exclamation marks. "It was a DELIGHTFUL ride. We cantered a good deal.
SWEET LITTLE ROSY WENT BEAUTIFULLY!! We came home at a 1/4 past 1... At
20 minutes to 7 we went out to the Opera... Rubini came on and sang a
song out of 'Anna Boulena' QUITE BEAUTIFULLY. We came home at 1/2
past 11." In her comments on her readings, the mind of the Baroness is
clearly revealed. One day, by some mistake, she was allowed to take up
a volume of memoirs by Fanny Kemble. "It is certainly very pertly and
oddly written. One would imagine by the style that the authoress must be
very pert, and not well bred; for there are so many vulgar expressions
in it. It is a great pity that a person endowed with so much talent, as
Mrs. Butler really is, should turn it to so little account and publish a
book which is so full of trash and nonsense which can only do her harm.
I stayed up till 20 minutes past 9." Madame de Sevigne's letters, which
the Baroness read aloud, met with more approval. "How truly elegant and
natural her style is! It is so full of naivete, cleverness, and grace."
But her highest admiration was reserved for the Bishop of Chester's
'Exposition of the Gospel of St. Matthew.' "It is a very fine
book indeed. Just the sort of one I like; which is just plain and
comprehensible and full of truth and good feeling. It is not one
of those learned books in which you have to cavil at almost every
paragraph. Lehzen gave