Part 21 (1/2)

”My Lord! How you can dance! Who taught you, I'd like to know?”

I turned round and saw the lovely face of Kate Vaughan She wore a long, black, clinging crepe-de-chine dress and a little black bonnet with a velvet bow over one ear; her white throat and beautiful arms were bare

”Why,” she said, ”you could understudy me, I believe! You come round and I'll show you oldie boys!”

I remember the expression, because I had no idea what she meant by it She explained that, if I became her under-study at the Gaiety, I would make my fortune I was surprised that she had taken me for a professional, but not more so than she hen I told her that I had never had a lesson in ballet-dancing in my life

My lovely coach, however, fell sick and had to give up the stage

She wrote -master, M d'Auban, under who fro-lesson to Tho to Lord Rosebery He said I had better run away; so, after kissing hier I left the room As I shut the door, I heard Lord Rosebery say:

”Your girl has beautiful eyes”

I repeated this upstairs, with joy and exciteood huh if lass, had a good look at ree

I asked my father about Lord Rosebery afterwards, and he said:

”He is far theand will certainly be Prime Minister one day”

Lord Rosebery was born with al face, a remarkable voice and natural authority When at Oxford, he had been tooto work and was consequently sent down--a punishrounds by another distinguished statesman, the present Viscount Grey--but no one could say he was not industrious at the time that I knew hi Mr Gladstone's chairn, where he became the idol of Scotland Whenever there was a crowd in the streets or at the station, in either Glasgow or Edinburgh, and I enquired what it was all about, I always received the same reply:

”Rozbury!”

I think Lord Rosebery would have had a better nervous system and been a happier man if he had not been so rich Riches are over- estiood and successful oats and peacocks

The values are changed in the New: Christ counsels a different perfection and proreat possessions, but He points out that his riches will hadom of Heaven and that he would do better to sell all; and He concludes with the penetrating words:

”Of what profit is it to a ain the whole world and lose his own soul?”

The soul here is freedom from self

Lord Rosebery was too thin-skinned, too conscious to be really happy He was not self-swayed like Gladstone, but he was self- enfolded He came into power at a time when the fortunes of the Liberal party were at their lowest; and this, coupled with his peculiar sensibility, put a severe strain upon hienius,from public life and the Press, cursed with insufficient aht that he was a man irresistible to his friends and terrible to his enes and arht, amen of letters, poets, peers or politicians, who at once scared and co silence, his playful s that he was a mixture of both

Lord Salisbury told me he was the best occasional speaker he had ever heard; and certainly he was an exceptionally gifted person

He came to Glen constantly in my youth and all of us worshi+pped hier or more playful and affectionate in intimacy than Lord Rosebery

An announceed to be married to me came between us in later years He was seriously annoyed and thought I ought to have contradicted this I had never even heard the report till I got a letter in Cairo froh consideration and respectful hoes of the writer and allow her to make my chemises After this, thehiid self-suppression that I felt quite exhausted A few ed to beof Lord Rosebery since he had gone into a period of longwithout him, but to lose Arthur's affection and friendshi+p would have been an irreparable personal loss to me I need not have been afraid, for this was just the kind of rued his insolent indifference to the public and the Press

Seeing ht, he left the side of thewith and with his elastic step stalked down the ereet me He asked me to sit down next to hih two dances I was told afterwards that so us said to hiot Tennant”

To which he replied:

”No, that is not so I rather think of having a career of onists, Sir William Harcourt and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerht to have lived in the eighteenth century To illustrate his sense of humour: he told me that women should be played with like fish; only in the one case you angle to reat deal of wit and nature, ienerosity of heart and a te; he was perverse, unreasonable, brilliant, boisterous and kind when I knew him; but he must have been all these in the nursery