She "stumbled upwards into
vacuity," to quote my dear friend Sir Walter Raleigh.
There is no one left to-day at all like George Pembroke. His
combination of intellectual temperament, gregariousness, variety
of tastes--yachting, art, sport and literature--his beauty of
person and hospitality to foreigners made him the distinguished
centre of any company. His first present to me was Butcher and
Lang's translation of the Odyssey, in which he wrote on the fly-
leaf, "To Margot, who most reminds me of Homeric days, 1884," and
his last was his wedding present, a diamond dagger, which I always
wear close to my heart.
Among the Souls, Milly Sutherland [Footnote: The Dowager Duchess
of Sutherland.], Lady Windsor [Footnote: The present Countess of
Plymouth.] and Lady Granby [Footnote: The present Duchess of
Rutland.] were the women whose looks I admired most. Lady Brownlow
[Footnote: Countess Brownlow, who died a few years ago.],
mentioned in verse eleven, was Lady Pembroke's handsome sister and
a famous Victorian beauty. Lady Granby--the Violet of verse nine,
Gladys Ripon [Footnote: My friend Lady de Grey.] and Lady Windsor
(alluded to as Lady Gay in verse twenty-eight), were all women of
arresting appearance: Lady Brownlow, a Roman coin; Violet Rutland,
a Burne-Jones Medusa; Gladys Ripon, a court lady; Gay Windsor, an
Italian Primitive and Milly Sutherland, a Scotch ballad. Betty
Montgomery was a brilliant girl and the only unmarried woman,
except Mrs.
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