l mansion. As Lady Tankerville pathetically exclaimed on
Lady Holland's death, "Ah! poore, deare Lady 'Olland! what shall we
do? It was such a pleasant 'ouse!"--admission to which was, to most
of its frequenters, well worth some toleration of its mistress's
brusqueries.

If, as a friend of mine once assured me (a well-born, well-bred man
of the best English society), it was quite well worth while to "eat
a little dirt" to get the _entree_ of Stafford House, I incline to
think the spoonfuls of dirt Lady Holland occasionally administered
to her friends were accepted by them as the equivalent for the
delights of her "pleasant 'ouse"; and that I did not think so, and
had no desire to go there upon those terms, was, I imagine, the only
thing that excited Lady Holland's curiosity about me, or her desire
to have me for her guest. She complained to Charles Greville that I
would not let her become acquainted with me, and twice after our
first unavailing meeting at Rogers's, made him ask me to meet her
again: each time, however, with no happier result.

The first time, after making herself generally obnoxious at dinner,
she at length provoked Rogers, who, the conversation having fallen
upon the subject of beautiful hair, and Lady Holland saying, "Why,
Rogers, only a few years ago, I had such a head of hair that I could
hide myself in it, and I've lost it all," merely answered, "What a
pity!"--but with such a tone that an exultant giggle ran round the
table at her expense.

After dinner, when the unfortunate female members of the party had
to encounter Lady Holland unprotected, she singled out one of the
ladies of the Baring family, to whom, however, she evidently meant
to be particularly gracious; not, I think, without some intention of
also pleasing me by her patronizing laudation of American people and
American things; winding up with, "You know, my dear, we are
Americans." The young Baring lady, who may or may not have been as
familiar as I was with the Bingham and Baring alliances of early
times in Philadelphia, merely raised her eyebrows, and said,
"Indeed!" while I kept my lips close and breathed no syllable of
Longfellow's house near Boston, which had been not only Washington's
temporary abode, but the residence, in colonial days, of the
Vassalls, to whom Lady Holland belonged, a