"Very sorry, Madam, we hab no pink silk stockings, but we hab plenty
of flesh-coloured ones," taking down as she spoke a great bundle of
_black_ silk stockings. Of course, if one thinks over it for a moment,
it would be so.

The religious hysteria amongst the negroes showed no signs of abating.
A black "prophet," a full-blooded negro named Bedward, made his
appearance, and gained a great following. Bedward, dressed in a
discarded British naval uniform, and attended by a neurotic bodyguard
of screaming, hysterical negresses, made continual triumphal parades
through the streets of Kingston. As far as I could ascertain the most
important item in his religious crusade was the baptism of his
converts in the Hope River, at a uniform charge of half-a-crown per
head.

With regard to baptism, a curious incident occurred long before I was
born. A sister of mine, the late Duchess of Buccleuch, was so frail
and delicate at her birth that it was thought that she could not
possibly survive. She was accordingly baptised privately two days
after her birth. She rallied, and grew into a big sturdy girl. When
she was four years old, my father had her received into the Church by
the Archbishop of Canterbury, at the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace.
During the service the Archbishop became inarticulate, and many of
those present feared that he had sustained a stroke, or had been
suddenly afflicted with aphasia. What had happened was this: As my
sister was inclined to be fidgetty and troublesome, my mother had,
perhaps unwisely, given her a packet of sugar-almonds to keep her
quiet. The child was actually sucking one of these when she arrived at
the Chapel Royal, but was, of course, made to remove it. Unseen by any
one, she managed to place another in her mouth. When the Archbishop