are footmen and a crowd of guests cloaking and departing. Of Mrs.
Ponsonby de Tomkyns Mr. Henry James has said: "This lady is a real
creation.... She is not one of the heroines of the æsthetic movement,
though we may be sure she dabbles in that movement so far as it pays to
do so. Mrs. Ponsonby de Tomkyns is a little of everything, in so far as
anything pays. She is always on the look-out; she never misses an
opportunity. She is not a specialist, for that cuts off too many
opportunities, and the æsthetic people have the _tort_ as the French
say, to be specialists. No, Mrs. Ponsonby de Tomkyns is--what shall we
call her?--well, she is the modern social spirit. She is prepared for
everything; she is ready to take advantage of everything; she would
invite Mr. Bradlaugh to dinner if she thought the Duchess would come to
meet him. The Duchess is her great achievement--she never lets go of her
Duchess. She is young, very nice-looking, slim, graceful, indefatigable.
She tires poor Ponsonby completely out; she can keep going for hours
after poor Ponsonby is reduced to stupefaction. This unfortunate husband
is indeed almost stupefied. He is not, like his wife, a person of
imagination. She leaves him far behind, though he is so inconvertible
that if she were a less superior person he would have been a sad
encumbrance. He always figures in the corner of the scenes in which she
distinguishes herself, separated from her by something like the gulf
that separated Caliban from Ariel. He has his hands in his pockets, his
head poked forward; what is going on is quite beyond his comprehension.
He vaguely wonders what his wife will do next; her manoeuvres quite
transcend him. Mrs. Ponsonby de Tomkyns always succeeds. She is never
at fault; she is as quick as the instinct of self-preservation. She is
the little London lady who is determined to be a greater one--she
pushes, gently but firmly--always pushes. At last she arrives."

We have quoted this delightful picture almost in its entirety from the