solitary moments at Borough Farm, in the heart of the Surrey commons,
when the September heather blazed about me; or the first signs of spring
were on the gorse and the budding trees; or beside some lonely pool; and
always heightened now by the company of my children. It was a stage--a
normal stage, in normal life. But I might have missed it so easily! The
Fates were kind to us in those days.

As to the social scene, let me gather from it first a recollection of
pure romance. One night at a London dinner-party I found myself sent
down with a very stout gentleman, an American Colonel, who proclaimed
himself an "esoteric Buddhist," and provoked in me a rapid and vehement
dislike. I turned my back upon him and examined the table. Suddenly I
became aware of a figure opposite to me, the figure of a young girl who
seemed to me one of the most ravishing creatures I had ever seen. She
was very small, and exquisitely made. Her beautiful head, with its mass
of light-brown hair; the small features and delicate neck; the clear,
pale skin, the lovely eyes with rather heavy lids, which gave a slight
look of melancholy to the face; the grace and fire of every movement
when she talked; the dreamy silence into which she sometimes fell,
without a trace of awkwardness or shyness. But how vain is any mere
catalogue to convey the charm of Laura Tennant--the first Mrs. Alfred
Lyttelton--to those who never saw her!

I asked to be introduced to her as soon as we left the dining-room, and
we spent the evening in a corner together.

I fell in love with her there and then. The rare glimpses of her that
her busy life and mine allowed made one of my chief joys thenceforward,
and her early death was to me--as to so many, many others!--a grief
never forgotten.