her
driving to his door one day with some peculiarly delicate jelly she
had had made for him, Frederick Byng (Poodle, as he was always
called by his intimates, on account of his absurd resemblance to a
dog of that species), seeing the remorseful gratitude on my face as
I received her message of inquiry after my father, exclaimed, "Now,
she's done it! now, she's won it! now, she's got you, and you'll go
to Holland House!" "No, I won't," said I, "but I'll go down to the
carriage, and thank her!" which I immediately did, without stopping
to put a bonnet on my head. Lady Holland was held, by those who knew
her, to be a warm and constant friend, and had always been cordially
kind to my father and my brother John.

After Lord Holland's death she left Holland House, and took up her
abode in South Street near the Park. One morning, when I was calling
on Lady Charlotte Lindsay, Lady Morley came in, and being
reproached by Lady Charlotte for not having come to a party at her
house on the previous evening, in which reproach I joined, having
been also a loser by her absence from that same party, "Couldn't,"
said the lively lady, "for I was spending the evening with the
pleasantest, most amiable, gentlest-mannered, sweetest-tempered, and
most charming woman in all London--Lady Holland!" A conversation
then ensued, in which certainly little quarter was shown to the ill
qualities of the former mistress of Holland House. Among several
curious instances of her unaccountably unamiable conduct to some of
even Lord Holland's dearest friends, who, for his sake, opened their
houses to her, allowed her to come thither, bespeaking her own
rooms--her own company, who she would meet and who she would bring,
and in every way consulting her pleasure and convenience, as was
invariably the case on the occasion of her visits to Panshanger and
Woburn,--Lady Morley said that Landseer had told her, that he was
walking one day by the side of Lady Holland's wheel-chair, in the
grounds of Holland House, and, stopping at a particularly pretty
spot, had said, "Oh, Lady Holland! this is the part of your place of
which the Duchess of Bedford has such a charming view from her house
on the hill above." "Is it?" said Lady Holland; and immediately gave
orders that the paling-fence round that part of her grounds should
be