My dear Sons: . . . On Friday we both went to see the Palace of
Hampton Court with my dear, good, Miss Murray, Mr. Winthrop and son,
and Louise. . . . On our arrival, we found, to our great vexation,
that Friday was the only day in the week in which visitors were not
admitted, and that we must content ourselves with seeing the grounds
and go back without a glimpse of its noble galleries of pictures.
Fortunately for us, Miss Murray had several friends among the
persons to whom the Queen has assigned apartments in the vast
edifice, and they willingly yielded their approbation of our
admission if she could possibly win over Mrs. Grundy, the
housekeeper. This name sounded rather inauspicious, but Mr.
Winthrop suggested that there might be a "Felix" to qualify it, and
so in this case it turned out. Mrs. Grundy asserted that such a
thing had never been done, that it was a very dangerous precedent,
etc., but in the end the weight of a Maid of Honor and a Foreign
Minister prevailed, and we saw everything to much greater advantage
than if we had 150 persons following on, as Mr. Winthrop says he had
the other day at Windsor Castle. . . . On our way [home] we met Lady
Byron with her pretty little carriage and ponies. She alighted and
we did the same, and had quite a pleasant little interview in the
dusty road.


Sunday, May 30th


Your father left town on Monday. . . . He did not return until the
27th, the morning of the Queen's Birthday Drawing-Room. On that
occasion I went dressed in white mourning. . . . It was a petticoat