of the A.D.C.'s engaged in merry conversation;
most of them are quite young men, immensely popular in the Dublin
Society and on the hunting field, where even in that great sporting
country they are usually to be found well in the first flight. We sat
talking for a few minutes, when the door suddenly opened, and a tall,
singularly handsome, well-groomed young man, in morning dress, entered
the room. Upon his appearance, Mrs. Henniker and her sister, Lady
Fitzgerald, and the remaining ladies and gentlemen present, rose to
their feet, for this was His Excellency the Viceroy of Ireland. It will
interest my American readers to learn that, not only do Mrs. Henniker
and Lady Fitzgerald always rise upon their brother's entrance into the
room, but it is further their custom, as it is the bounden duty of every
lady, to curtsey to him profoundly on leaving the luncheon or dinner
table. His Excellency at once joined in our conversation. We were
discussing parodies at the moment, and somebody had stated--indeed I
think it was myself--that a certain parody which had been quoted, and
over which we had been laughing very heartily, was by the well-known
Cambridge lyrist, C. C. Calverley.

[Illustration: LADY FITZGERALD.]

"No," said Lord Houghton, "it is not by Calverley, it is by----. But,"
said he, "the funniest thing I ever heard was this," and he repeated,
with immense humour, and with wonderful vivacity, a set of lines which
threw us all into fits of laughter. I regret I am unable to recall them.
The conversation drifting to memories of some of his father's celebrated
friends, His Excellency told me a delightful story of Carlyle. It
appeared that the grim old Chelsea hermit had once, when a child, saved
in a teacup three bright halfpence. But a poor old Shetland beggar with
a bad arm came to the door one day. Carlyle gave him all his treasure at
once. In after life, in referring to the incident, he used to say: "The
feeling of happiness was most intense; I would give L100 now to have
that feeling for one moment back again."

Mrs. Henniker and the Lord Lieutenant and myself drifted into quiet
conversation, whilst the general talk buzzed around us. She had told me
that her brother had written a prize poem at Harrow, and that his recent
publications, "Stray Verses," had all been done in a year.

"His verses are curiously unlike those of my father," she said. "He is
very catholic in his tastes; my father's were more poems of
refle