Hodgkinson, who wanted to stay with us, only we
would not have them, so we were left to ourselves more or less.
[Sidenote: _An Amusing Mistake_]
Mrs. Murray-Hartley took us to see the pictures and the collections of
china and miniatures; and she talks about them all just like a book,
and calls them simple little things, and you would never have guessed
they cost thousands, and that she had not been used to them always,
until she showed us a beautiful enamel of Madame de Pompadour, and
called it the Princesse de Lamballe, and said so sympathetically that
it was quite too melancholy to think she had been hacked to pieces in
the Revolution; only perhaps it served her right for saying "_Apres moi
le deluge!_". Octavia was in fits, and I wonder no one noticed it. Then
she said she must leave us for a little in the music-room, as she
always went to see her children at this hour--they live in another
wing.
[Sidenote: _Gossip_]
By that time Lady Doraine and Lady Greswold, and most of the others
were down, and some of them looked as if they had been up awfully late.
It seems they did not finish the baccarat until half-past three, and
that Lord Oldfield won more than a thousand pounds.
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