It is very true that in the old Keppel Street and Harrow days several Italian exiles, and I think some Spaniards, used to be her occasional guests.

This had come to pass by means of her intimacy with Lady Dyer, the wife and subsequently widow of Sir Thomas Dyer, whose years of foreign service had interested him and her in many such persons.

The friends of her friend were her friends.

They were not such by virtue of their political position and ideas.

Though it is no doubt true, that caring little about politics, and in a jesting way (how jesting many a memorial of fun between her and Lady Dyer, and Miss Gabell, the daughter of Dr.Gabell of Winchester, is still extant in my hands to prove;) the general tone of the house was "Liberal." But nothing can be farther from the truth than the idea that my mother was led to become a Tory by the "graciousness" of any "marquises" or great folks of any kind.