I must add that many of the old ones
had no room for us and some were living in the country. Lady
Crewe[Footnote: The Marchioness of Crewe.]--young enough to be my
daughter, and a woman of rare honesty of purpose and clearness of
head--took our son Cyril in at Crewe House. Lady Granard[Footnote:
The Countess of Granard.] put up my husband; Mrs. Cavendish-
Bentinck--Lady Granard's aunt and one of God's own--befriended my
daughter Elizabeth; Mrs. George Keppel[Footnote: The Hon. Mrs.
Keppel.] always large-hearted and kind--gave me a whole floor of
her house in Grosvenor Street to live in, for as many months as I
liked, and Mrs. McKenna [Footnote: Mrs. McKenna, the daughter of
Lady Jekyll, and niece of Lady Horner.] took in my son Anthony. No
one has had such wonderful friends as I have had, but no one has
suffered more at discovering the instability of human beings and
how little power to love many people possess.
Few men and women surrender their wills; and it is considered
lowering to their dignity to own that they are in the wrong. I
never get over my amazement at this kind of self-value, it passes
all my comprehension. It is vanity and this fundamental lack of
humbleness that is the bed-rock of nearly every quarrel.
It was through my beloved Lady Wemyss that I first met the Master
of Balliol. One evening in 1888, after the men had come in from
shooting, we were having tea in the large marble hall at Gosford.
[Footnote: Gosford is the Earl of Wemyss' country place and is
situated between Edinburgh and North Berwick.
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