"They got home soon after we had left the drawing-room, as the Queen
always retires at eleven. No late hours for her.
"The next day Lady Mary told me that the Queen had talked to her all
about 'Dred,' and how she preferred it to 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' how
interested she was in Nina, how provoked when she died, and how she
was angry that something dreadful did not happen to Tom Gordon. She
inquired for papa, and the rest of the family, all of whom she seemed
to be well informed about.
"The next morning we had Lord Dufferin again to breakfast. He is one
of the most entertaining young men I have seen in England, full of
real thought and noble feeling, and has a wide range of reading. He
had read all our American literature, and was very flattering in his
remarks on Hawthorne, Poe, and Longfellow. I find J. R. Lowell less
known, however, than he deserves to be.
"Lord Dufferin says that his mother wrote him some verses on his
coming of age, and that he built a tower for them and inscribed them
on a brass plate. I recommend the example to you, Henry; make yourself
the tower and your memory the brass plate.
"This morning came also, to call, Lady Augusta Bruce, Lord Elgin's
daughter, one of the Duchess of Kent's ladies-in-waiting; a very
excellent, sensible girl, who is a strong anti-slavery body.
"After lunch we drove over to Eton, and went in to see the provost's
house.
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