you were going next morning. I shall hope to see you before you start on
your enviable Spanish tour, as I mean to go home as soon as my cure
is complete, for Lady C. feels Alice's absence, [Footnote: Lady Alice
Villiers, married on August 16th, 1860, to Lord Skelmersdale, created Earl
of Lathom in 1880. She was accidentally killed by the overturning of her
carriage on November 23rd, 1897.] and is lonely with only two children out
of six.

I passed two very pleasant days at Baden with the Aug. Loftuses and the
Princess of Prussia, who is domiciled there, and we returned last night.

_The Grove, September 30th_.--I returned here last night without touching
at Grosvenor Crescent. If I had gone there, I should have been at home ten
minutes within the twenty hours from Paris, which is a fair rate of speed
when one remembers that in pre-railway days one travelled hard and got
shaken much to arrive at Paris in three days; and in pre-steamer times I
was once eighteen hours in getting from Calais to Dover. Yet people are not
satisfied; and Rothschild told me he was bullied by everybody about the
slowness of the Ligne du Nord.

I am afraid I shall not have the pleasure of seeing you, as I cannot go to
London to-morrow, and from Tuesday till Friday we are engaged to the
John Thynnes. In the improbable event of your charming expedition being
postponed, we should be quite delighted if you and Mrs. and Miss Reeve
would come here on Saturday.

As it is now nearly twenty-two years since I left Spain (how time flies!),
new generations have sprung up of whom I know nothing. There are two
persons--Mme. de Montijo and Olozaga [Footnote: Reeve had known him as the
Spanish ambassador in Paris fifteen years.]--who I should have liked you