Pathos, however, was not a word that seemed--at first sight, at any
rate--to have much to do with Lady Cloncurry. She was the most energetic
and sprightly _grande dame_ as I remember her, small, with vivid black
eyes and hair, her head always swathed in a becoming black lace coif,
her hands in black mittens. She and her daughter Emily amused each other
perennially, and were endless good company, besides, for other people.
Lady Cloncurry's clothes varied very little. She had an Irish contempt
for too much pains about your appearance, and a great dislike for
_grande tenue_. When she arrived at an Irish country-house, of which the
hostess told me the story, she said to the mistress of the house, on
being taken to her room: "My dear, you don't want me to come down smart?
I'm sure you don't! Of course I've brought some smart gowns. _They_
[meaning her daughters] make me buy them. But they'll just do for my
maid to show your maid!" And there on the wardrobe shelves they lay
throughout her visit.

At Valescure we were within easy reach of Cannes, where the Actons were
settled at the Villa Madeleine. The awkwardness of the trains prevented
us from seeing as much of them as we had hoped; but I remember some
pleasant walks and talks with Lord Acton, and especially the vehement
advice he gave us, when my husband joined us and we started on a short,
a very short, flight to Italy--for my husband had only a meager holiday
from the _Times: "Go to Rome_! Never mind the journeys. Go! You will
have three days there, you say? Well, to have walked through Rome, to
have spent an hour in the Forum, another on the Palatine; to have seen
the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's; to have climbed the
Janiculum and looked out over the Alban hills and the Campagna--and you
can do all that in three days--well!--life is not the same afterward. If
you only had an afternoon in Rome it would be well worth while. But