Yours affectionately,
F. A. B.

[The occasion of my becoming acquainted with my admirable and very
kind friend, the Rev. Sydney Smith, was a dinner at Mr. Rogers's, to
which I had been asked to meet Lord and Lady Holland, by special
desire, as I was afterwards informed, of the latter, who, during
dinner, drank out of her neighbor's (Sydney Smith's) glass, and
otherwise behaved herself with the fantastic, despotic impropriety
in which she frequently indulged, and which might have been
tolerated in a spoilt beauty of eighteen, but was hardly becoming in
a woman of her age and "personal appearance." When first I came out
on the stage, my father and mother, who occasionally went to Holland
House, received an invitation to dine there, which included me;
after some discussion, which I did not then understand, it was
deemed expedient to decline the invitation for me, and I neither
knew the grounds of my parents' decision, nor of how brilliant and
delightful a society it had then closed the door to me. On my return
to England after my marriage, Lady Holland's curiosity revived with
regard to me, and she desired Rogers to ask me to meet her at
dinner, which I did; and the impression she made upon me was so
disagreeable that, for a time, it involved every member of that
dinner-party in a halo of undistinguishing dislike in my mind.

My sister had joined us in the evening, and sat for a few moments by
Lady Holland, who dropped her handkerchief. Adelaide, who was as
unpleasantly impressed as myself by that lady, for a moment made no
attempt to pick it up; but, reflecting upon her age and size, which
made it difficult for her to stoop for it herself, my sister picked
it up and presented it to her, when Lady Holland, taking it from
her, merely said, "Ah! I thought you'd do it." Adelaide said she
felt an almost irresistible inclination to twitch it from her hand,
throw it on the ground again, and say, "Did you? then now do it
yourself!"

Altogether the evening was unsuccessful, if its purpose had been an
acquaintance between Lady Holland and myself; and I remember a
grotesque climax to my dissatisfaction in the destruction of a
lovely nosegay of exquisite flowers which my sister had brought with
her, and which