“London, Nov. 27.—Charlie Halifax says that a tenant of Carlo Milnes Gaskell (of Thornes) was found dead—murdered evidently—in one of his woods. A very bad character in the neighbourhood, who was known to hate the dead man, and who had been seen near the wood at the time of his death, was arrested and tried for the murder. All the evidence was against him, but he got off because, instead of measuring the footprints near the body and then the boots of the accused, the boots had been taken to the spot and fitted into the footprints, which allowed of its being said that they had been manufactured by pressing the boots into the soft earth. The man was always afterwards suspected of the murder, but he got work in a factory. If the subject was spoken of, he became very violent, and prayed that the devil might take him if he was guilty. One day, after he had been declaiming thus, he was caught by the mill machinery and torn to pieces. The iron claw which had caught him and pulled him in is that always known as ‘the Devil.’”

“‘The Duke did not wish to marry Mademoiselle de Luzy: that is an invention. He only murdered the Duchess because she was such a bore. He certainly did not wish to marry any one else.’

“Madame du Quaire talked of the prevailing passion for Buddhism, and said, ‘I am not even going to attempt to believe in it, for it is not necessary to salvation: there is such a tremendous quantity that I am obliged to swallow, that I cannot possibly undertake anything—“che non e d’obligo” as the Italian priests say.’

“Madame du Quaire had met Lady Colin Campbell at dinner and sat opposite to her, but she did not know her. She could not help being attracted by the necklace she wore, it was so very extraordinary. After a time it seemed to be moving by itself. She fancied at first that this must be a delusion, but, putting up her glasses, she certainly saw the necklace writhing round Lady Colin’s throat. Seeing her astonished look, Lady Colin said, ‘Oh, I see you are looking at my snake: I always wear a live snake round my throat in hot weather: it keeps one’s neck so cool;’ and it really was a live snake.”

“‘They were wonderful people, those old Pastons. They used to thrash their daughters like anything if they did not behave themselves, and then, when they had flogged them well, they would say, “And now they must have silk dresses, rich, red, and beautiful!”’

“When Sir Henry Vane came home, he was exhausted by a long journey and went at once to rest. Lady Vane did not intend to tell him of her discovery till the next day. But suddenly, late in the afternoon, she heard a tremendous noise in her husband’s room. She rushed in, and found Sir Henry in a state of the greatest agitation. He said, ‘I have seen the most frightful apparition—a woman in that corner,’ pointing to where the box of bones had been deposited.

“From old family archives they found that, some years before, exactly at the date upon the Bible cover, a woman had been walled up in the house. She had made desperate efforts to escape up the funnel of the disused chimney, and had always fallen down again. Sir Henry and Lady Vane themselves buried the bones in the churchyard, and the house has been at peace ever since.”

“Thorncombe, Dec. 13.—Miss Montgomery is here, a lady of the most impassive countenance, though she is the authoress of ‘Misunderstood.’”

To Miss Leycester.

“Arles, April 13.—The visit to this place—perhaps more than any other connected with happy days of our long-ago travels, and which I have always avoided hitherto since I have been alone—has unexpectedly proved a great pleasure. And I am glad, now I have seen so much, that I still think Arles by far the most interesting place in the south of France, and the excursion to Montmajour and Les Baux, which I made again on Saturday, quite incomparable—the former, as far as I have seen the world, one of its most beautiful ruins, the latter so glorious as to scenery. Yesterday there was what the French call a bull-fight in the amphitheatre, but there is nothing terrible: no horses, only men enticing bulls with handkerchiefs, and when they run at them, vaulting like chamois over the barriers; while the arcades of Roman masonry are filled with vast multitudes, chiefly ‘belles Arlesiennes’ in their picturesque costume—a very fine sight.”

“Cambrai, April 30.—How I thought of you to-day when I was by the tomb of Fénelon, which has a striking statue. But how ugly, how treeless, how black with coal-dust is all this north-east of France. I always imagined the Ardennes were pretty, but the beauty is only in the Belgian part. Nothing can be more frightful than Sedan, Charleville, Mezières, Valenciennes, and this place is also hideous; though perhaps all has looked worse than usual under a black sky and incessant rain.

I returned home on May 3, and at the beginning of June was at Scotney Castle.

Journal.

“Sir Arthur Birch, who has some high appointment at the Bank of England, has lately been at Scotney, full of a very singular circumstance. He had two clerks, an elderly Mr. Sperati and a Mr. Lutwich, and they were very intimate friends. One Whit-Monday evening, as he was sitting with his wife by the fire in his house in Burlington Gardens, Mr. Lutwich, with a very scared look, bade her mark the exact time, ‘for,’ said he, ‘I have just seen Sperati; he has just appeared in this room, as distinctly as I ever saw him in my life. He wore a very old coat of his, which I know quite well, and had a very peculiar silver-knobbed stick in his hand; I am certain he is dead, and I must go to his house and see.’

“But the wife urged him so much not to go then, and to wait till the next morning, that he assented.

“As he was on his way in the morning to Sperati’s house, he met Sperati’s brother, who said, ‘I was on my way to tell you sad news; my brother died last night at nine o’clock, very suddenly, of heart-disease.’ It was exactly the hour at which Mr. Lutwich had seen him.

“Mrs. Papillon had been telling the Husseys of a very famous female mesmerist living in Park Street. Late one night this person had a visitor who urged her very much to consent to go at once to a mysterious patient, to whom she could only travel blindfolded. She hesitated for some time, but finally, being very much urged, she assented. A well-appointed carriage was at the door, in which she was driven to the railway. In the train she was blindfolded. Several hours were passed in travelling by train. Then she was taken out to a carriage and driven for some distance. On arriving at a house, she was led up a staircase and into a large room. As her bandage was removed, she saw two ladies in black just leaving the room. A gentleman was lying in bed, very dangerously ill of typhoid fever. She mesmerised him and he fell asleep. When he awoke, a great change for the better was perceptible. He said, ‘I feel better; I could drink a glass of beer.’ She said, ‘Give him the beer.’ He drank it, and fell into a restful, natural sleep.

“Mr. Hussey told me that an old Mr. and Mrs. Close of Nottingham were very rich and great misers, and they both made wills leaving all they possessed each to the other. However, as they died within a few hours of each other, that made very little difference to anybody.

“When the heirs-at-law arrived at Nottingham—young people full of spirits—they were greatly excited and brimming with curiosity. It was known that there were splendid diamonds, and that vast wealth of every kind existed, but at first nothing seemed to be forthcoming. Cupboards and drawers were ransacked in vain. Nothing particular was found.

“As it was burning, she stood by, and heedlessly, with her stick, pulled one of the curl-papers towards her, and poked it open at her feet. It was a £50 note! In an agony, she scrimmaged at the fire, and raked out all she possibly could, but it was too late; most of the notes were burnt; she only saved about £800.

“Naturally her husband was furious, and of course he was very unjust. ‘Any one but you would have examined the box carefully; there never was such an idiot of a woman,’ &c. And every time he saw the burnt heap in the courtyard, he burst forth afresh. So she sent for the dustman round the corner, and had all the ashes carefully cleared away.

“The stays had all perished in the fire; the diamonds would not have burnt, but then the very ashes had been thrown away; there was no trace left of them. The bank-notes were all very old—the few that were saved—but they were quite good; but there was very little else left of the great inheritance.”

To Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford.

“Jermyn Street, June 16, 1887.—London is in gala costume, the streets flooded with flowers, and the West End thoroughfares lined by stands, with seats covered with red and gay awnings. I am perpetually thinking of what Arthur Stanley’s ecstasy would have been on looking forward to having so many kings and queens, besides no end of other royalty, in the Abbey at once. On Saturday I was at Osterley, where the gardens were quite lovely and delicious in the heat, and yesterday there was a pleasant party at Lord Beauchamp’s, with little comedies to amuse Princess Mary, who was exceedingly gracious and kind to me.

“Alas! we are expecting the news of Theodore Walrond’s death—a man apparently as healthy in body as in mind till his last illness set in, and quite universally beloved.”

“To-day my two young American friends, Sands and Martin, gave a most pleasant luncheon. I sat by Lady Middleton, who talked charmingly and gratefully of the happiness of married life—the pleasure to a woman of entire self-renunciation: then of her own life, which she would not exchange for any in the world, though she has had to give up all her own inclinations, and to throw herself absolutely and entirely into the interests of hunting. She said she never allowed an ill word on the field, and if she heard one, rode even for miles till she caught up the culprit to say so.”

“June 19.—Lady Dorothy Nevill has been most funny about a burglary at Lady Orford’s. While the family were away, a man came to the door, who said he was sent to measure the dining-room chimney-piece, and asked the old woman who was taking care of the place to go up to the top of the house to get him a piece of tape for the purpose. When she came down, the man was gone, and so were two of the best pictures. ‘I could swear to the pictures anywhere,’ said the old woman afterwards, ‘for they were of members of the Orford family.’ ‘They were the Virgin Mary and St. Sebastian,’ added Lady Dorothy, ‘and I leave you to imagine how far they were ever likely to have been members of the Orford family!’

“He spoke of the folly of interfering in any street rows. ‘It had been a wet day, and you know when the pavement is wet—why I cannot tell—you can see much farther than at other times, and down the whole length of Eaton Place I saw a man knock a woman down; she got up, and he knocked her down again. He knocked her down several times running. At last I got up to him and said, “You villain, to knock a woman down like that; how can you dare to do it?”—“Now you just go along with you,” said the woman; “he only gave me what I deserved.”—“Oh, if you like being knocked down, it’s another matter,” I said.’

“Chief-Justice Morris said he was sitting on the bench in Ireland, and after a case had been tried, he said to the jurymen, ‘Now, to consider this matter, you will retire to your accustomed place,’ and two-thirds of them went into the dock.

“Another time he said to a culprit, ‘I can produce five witnesses who saw you steal that cow.”—‘Yes,’ said the prisoner, ‘but I can produce five hundred who did not.’

To Miss Leycester.

“June 21, 1887.—Nothing can have been more sublimely pathetic than the whole ceremony (of the Jubilee)—more inexpressibly touching and elevating. The Abbey, too, did not look spoilt: all the tiers of seats, all the galleries disappeared utterly: nothing was visible between the time-worn pillars and under the grey arches but the masses of people they contained.

“I went at 8 A.M. It was not a moment too soon. Cabs charged two pounds to the Abbey, but I walked very comfortably. The tickets had little maps of the Abbey, with the entrance for the bearer marked on each. Mine was by a door on the north-east behind St. Margaret’s, and there I waited, with a small crowd, till nine struck, and some iron gates were opened by the police, when we ran down an awned passage to where a staircase of rough timber led up by the great Norris tomb to our places.

“Mine was simply perfect, a splendid place, from whence—