oor girl, Miss Abercrombie, whose death by strychnine
led to the exposure of Wainewright's murders; and the opinion he had
formed of her chances of recovery, the external indications of that
poison being then but imperfectly known, was first shaken, he told me,
by the gloomy and despairing cries of the old family nurse, that her
mother and her uncle had died exactly so! These, it was afterwards
proved, had been among the murderer's former victims. The Lovelaces
were frequent guests after the return from Italy, Sir George Crawford,
so friendly in Genoa, having married Lord Lovelace's sister; and few had
a greater warmth of admiration for Dickens than Lord Byron's "Ada," on
whom Paul Dombey's death laid a strange fascination. They were again at
a dinner got up in the following year for Scribe and the composer
Halevy, who had come over to bring out the _Tempest_ at Her
Majesty's-theatre, then managed by Mr. Lumley, who with M. Van de Weyer,
Mrs. Gore and her daughter, the Hogarths, and I think the fine French
comedian, Samson, were also among those present. Earlier that year there
were gathered at his dinner-table the John Delanes, Isambard Brunels,
Thomas Longmans (friends since the earliest Broadstairs days, and
special favourites always), Lord Mulgrave, and Lord Carlisle, with all
of whom his intercourse was intimate and frequent, and became especially
so with Delane in later years. Lord Carlisle amused us that night, I
remember, by repeating what the good old Brougham had said to him of
"those _Punch_ people," expressing what was really his fixed belief.
"They never get my face, and are obliged" (which, like Pope, he always
pronounced obleeged), "to put up with my plaid trousers!" Of Lord
Mulgrave, pleasantly associated with the first American experiences, let
me add that he now went with us to several outlying places of amusement
of which he wished to acquire some knowledge, and which Dickens knew
better than any man; small theatres, saloons, and gardens in city or
borough, to which the Eagle and Britannia were as palaces; and I think
he was of the party one famous night in the summer of 1849 (29th of
June), when with Talfourd, Edwin Landseer, and Stanfield, we went to the
_Battle of Waterloo_ at Vauxhall, and were astounded to see pass in
immediately before us, in a bright white overcoat, the great Duke
himself, Lady Douro on his arm, the little Ladies Ramsay by his side,
and everybody cheering and clearing the way bef